Greta Thunberg has responded to a graphic sticker linked to a Canadian oilfield company that appears to depict the climate activist being sexually assaulted.
While many supporters were outraged on her behalf, the 17-year-old climate activist has managed to find a positive way to look at it.
“They are starting to get more and more desperate…” she tweeted on Saturday. “This shows that we’re winning.”
The stickers, reading “X-Site Energy Services,” were handed out as promotional material to be worn at jobs sites, a worker told HuffPost Canada. The decal depicts a naked woman and two hands pulling her braids, with the word “Greta” written across her back.
Michelle Narang, a resident of Rocky Mountain House in west-central Alberta, first brought attention to the decal on Facebook.
She ended up calling Doug Sparrow, a general manager at X-Site, to ask him if he was aware of what the sticker, which appeared to depict the rape of a minor.
“She’s not a child, she’s 17,” he responded, Narang says.
While the sticker is incredibly offensive, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Friday that it doesn’t constitute as child pornography. Child pornography is defined as the visual representation of a person under the age of 18 either engaged or depicted to engage in sexual activity.
Police said even with the word “Greta” written on it, it can’t be stated with certainty that the sticker is supposed to depict Thunberg.
“We also don’t feel it’s appropriate, of course, but it isn’t a criminal matter,” RCMP superintendent Gerald Grobmeier told HuffPost on Friday.
The sticker was also condemned unanimously by the Canadian House of Commons on Friday. The motion from MP Alexandre Boulerice said the sticker promoted “violent sexual assault on a young environmental activist.”
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Alberta’s minister of culture Leela Aheer also denounced the image on Twitter, calling it, “completely deplorable, unacceptable and degrading.”
Thunberg took the world by storm in 2019, motivating thousands of people to take to the streets around the world and join her strike for climate change action. She toured Alberta’s oilsands last October, where she rallied with Mikisew Cree First Nation, and most recently appeared in front of thousands at a climate strike event in Bristol. She was named TIME Magazine’s youngest ever person of the year in 2019.