A ST Kilda woman is fighting to remove telegraph pole advertisements offering young girls nude internet modelling work.
Gail Butterworth said she first noticed the ads, on A4 sheets of paper with pull-off tags at the bottom, stuck to poles in Punt Road in 2008.
The ads asked for women aged over 18 to pose nude for $250 per shoot in an “internationally acclaimed nude photographic project”.
They are linked to a website for a Melbourne-based company called “Feck” that advertises “quality erotica” with pictures of naked young women, which it describes as artistic images.
The women are paid for their initial shoot, and thereafter per click.
Ms Butterworth contacted Port Phillip council, which removed ads that were posted on public property, and for a while the advertising stopped. “Now it has started again,” Ms Butterworth said.
“Ultimately it’s luring young girls into something that can be awful for them.”
Ms Butterworth has been speaking with Crime Stoppers, which said the company was not doing anything illegal so it was unable to take action.
A Feck spokeswoman, who asked not to be named, denied the company preyed on young girls. She said all participants were required to provide government-issued photo ID to prove they were over 18.
Mayor Rachel Powning said the council could only deal with the ads when they were posted illegally on poles “not bookstore noticeboards”.
“Clean-ups are organised through the waste services area.” she said.