In pictures and clips on social media, the UN refugee agency UNHCR talks about people they have helped inside Ukraine. But Kalla fakta can now show several cases where vulnerable people have been used in an advertising context without giving permission for it.
Last March, Yury Ohieba and Oksana Kutsypalenko’s house was completely destroyed in a Russian attack. After that, representatives of the UNHCR came to visit, no less than three times. Yury and Oksana thought they would participate in an article and get help with building materials to rebuild their bombed-out house. Unbeknownst to them, they were being used as poster names on social media to raise money for UNHCR.
UNHCR’s country manager in Ukraine, Karolina Lindholm Billing, says that everyone who participates in their marketing has agreed to it:
– Always when we show people we help through our channels, social media or the like, it is after they have given their consent.
Oksana: “I had no idea”
But when Kalla Fakta seeks out Yury and Oksana and shows the UNHCR advertisement, they are surprised.
– No one has ever told me this. I mean, that someone is making money from our story. I had no idea about that, says Oksana.
Cold facts have tracked down four people who have clearly become poster names for UNHCR. None of them had any idea that they are being used to collect money.
An image that often recurs in UNHCR’s feed represents a woman who has received a blanket. When Kalla fakta gets hold of the woman, whose name is Klavdia Beliakova, it turns out that she also does not know that she is participating in UNHCR’s advertising and that the picture of her is four years old.
1.5 billion to UNHCR
The UN refugee agency UNHCR is the aid organization that received the most money from the Swedish people during the war in Ukraine. Private individuals, companies and foundations in Sweden have donated SEK 1.5 billion to UNHCR.
Yury and Oksana never received the building materials they thought they had been promised. UNHCR gave the couple a tent that cannot be lived in now in the winter. UNHCR claims it offered the couple more help. Something that Yury and Oksana refute.
– We really hope that help will come. We used to trust people and believe that they do what they promise, says Yury.
Cold facts can be seen on TV4 Play from 06:00 on February 20 and at 20:00 on TV4 on the same day.
In the player above: Watch the full interview with Yuri and Oksana.