Give this ad the boot

I wonder what Maria Korp's family thinks of this ad?

The mother of the little Chinese girl, nicknamed Pumpkin, was also found murdered in the boot of a car. Her husband has been deported from the US to face murder charges.

There is a new trend in making violence against women sexy. We saw it with Vogue Italia's "terror-porn" fashion shoot in 2006, which showed women in various states of undress being terrorised by security guards and German Shepherd dogs.

Then there are the "Crime Scene" episodes of America's Next Top Model. Models had to pretend they'd been murdered - electrocuted, poisoned, stabbed, drowned and decapitated. The models who looked the "sexiest" in death, won.

Another shoe company uses images of murdered women in morgues in Guatemala to advertise its products.

Now it's Loula and Harper's Bazaar's turn.

Loula isn't just into trussed-up women in car boots. Its "Noir" campaign also included images of women digging their own graves and police-style chalk outlines of women's dead bodies.

Harper's offers us "the hottest trends you don't want to miss out on." Are full page ads featuring women as corpses part of some hot new trend?

It makes you wonder what part of "corporate social responsibility" they don't understand.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, at least one in 17 Australian women are victims of violence every year and at least two in five have experienced violence at least once since the age of 15. That's 3.1 million women.

Organisations working to combat violence against women joined forces to protest against the ad. They included: The Domestic Violence & Incest Resource Centre (DVIRC); Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA House); the CASA Forum of Victoria; Women’s Forum Australia (WFA); the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia (CATWA); the Anti-Slavery Project; Project Respect; FINRRAGE; Enlighten Education; Kids Free 2b Kids; R♀AR Feminist Collective; the Sex Trade Opposition Project (STOP); WOMENS Healthworks; SHARE WA; and the Coalition for a Feminist Agenda.

Fiona McCormack, spokeswoman for Domestic Violence Victoria, the peak body for family violence services for women and children, described the ad as irresponsible and abhorrent.