Anti-racism and hair activist Zulaikha Patel has blamed lack of consequences against racism perpetrators for the continued racist practices that find their way into the influential advertising industry.

Patel was the first witness before the SA Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC's) inquiry into racial discrimination in SA's advertising industry, with focus placed on the processes followed in creating and approving adverts for television, radio, print and online platforms.

The inquiry is aimed at finding ways of ensuring that public adverts did not have content that perpetrated racism, tribalism, homophobia and sexism amid complaints over the years about stereotypes and the discriminatory nature of adverts.

Patel, who became the face of the fight waged by high school pupils at Pretoria Girls High in 2016 when they fought against the school’s racist policy on black hair, said there had been minimal consequence across the board for racism and that this helped it continue and find its way into the advertising industry.

“We don’t see the necessary accountability where people are directly held accountable. In the country in general, I don’t see that enough, which is why in SA in general it allows for places like the advertising sector for racism to be repeated,” Patel said.

Patel said cosmetic companies and the agencies that produced adverts continued to portray black people’s hair as inferior and damaged, among other discriminatory messaging narratives that continued to go almost unquestioned.

She said there had to be a written guideline that policed the making of advertising which the commission had to initiate before it was accepted and enforced for the advertising industry to comply with.

“It must outline what are the basics of what advertising should portray in a country and what kind of messaging is more appropriate,” she said, adding that the guidelines had to spell out consequences for transgressors.

Currently, some of the complaints regarding advertising are addressed to the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), which was set up after the Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) went into liquidation in 2018.

Priceless SA’s Petronell Kruger called on the commission to come up with regulatory recommendations in relation to when some adverts were allowed to air to avoid them being accessed by unintended consumers, including fast food and alcohol adverts when the programming was intended for children.

Kruger said there had to be more powers given to the ARB to help it to have wider powers that helped it to regulate the behaviour of advertising platforms and impose sanctions on those who breached regulations.

The inquiry continues, with more witnesses expected to testify on discriminatory content within the advertising industry.