By Wendy Anders

Costa Rica’s left-leaning Citizen Action Party (PAC) legislator, Javier Cambronero, denounced a new advertising campaign by the state-owned Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) as sexist, and demanded they withdraw the publicity, reported Elperiodicocr.com, a Costa Rican digital news source yesterday.

The bank is using sexist stereotypes to launch a new payment service called “Tucán,” said Cambronero in a legislative session.

He said the advertisement promotes a “macho and harmful” view of the child support payment system by casting men in the role of innocent ‘victims,’ and portraying women as somewhat disturbed.

“A State Bank, like any public entity, is legally obliged to avoid reproducing stereotyped gender roles. It is unfortunate that the BCR, using public resources, continues with a sexist campaign like this,“ said Cambronero.

The legislator said he would report the ad to the Office of Censorship and Control of Propaganda if the BCR fails to withdraw the campaign, said Elperiodicocr.com.

The ad shows a woman with a newborn baby in her arms stalking the baby’s father to ensure he pays child support; meanwhile the man, a soccer player, seeks aid from his teammates and skulks off to quickly make a payment using the Tucán system before he is caught.

“It is repudiable this type of advertising, which shows lack of common sense, originality and creativity. There is nothing more facile and perverse than taking advantage of prejudices to sell products or services,“ said the legislator.

Meanwhile, the UCR Radio program “Palabra de Mujer,” or “Woman’s Word,” said on their Facebook site that, “Child support is an important tool intended to protect the basic rights of children and teens, and ensure these rights are given priority. But this video makes a farce of such rights; as well as reproducing many machista stereotypes.”

The publicity campaign has caused a stir on social media, with a wide diversity of comments and over a thousand views of the video just on the BCR website.