In Lebanon, there is no law that protects women from domestic violence.
For years, Kafa, a leading NGO, has been working relentlessly on developing a draft law project to specifically protect women from domestic violence. The law went back and forth for years, and remained for a long time dormant in the parliament’s drawers.
On April first 2014, the parliament was meeting to pass several laws. So, 3 days before the parliament meeting, Kafa came to us for help.
In Lebanon, the same MP’s have been in office for decades. And these same MP’s were getting ready again for the upcoming elections. In Lebanon, women constitute 52% of the voting force. We decided to threaten our MP’s with the one weapon that could actually hurt them: OUR VOTES.
We invited people to color their thumbs and threaten overtly #Nolawnovote.
Success of the Campaign
• More than 22 million Twitter impressions in 2 weeks from 51 countries
• More than 20,000 physical and digital red thumbs gathered
• A 700% increase in online conversations about domestic violence
• A 350% increase in comments on Kafa’s Facebook page
• A 23% increase in followers on Kafa’s Twitter page
• 1.7 million USD in earned media
• 2 million people exposed to the campaign from the TV news coverage in a country of 4 million
Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.
We created a simple visual icon featuring a red thumb with a simple statement: “Vote for us. We’ll vote for you”.
We asked Kafa activists and TV anchors to colour their thumbs in red and post them online or show their Red Thumbs on TV.
People from all walks of life, age, and religions joined our movement; celebrities endorsed our cause; media anchors actively supported our movement; brands and institutions joined in.
Our red thumbs proliferated everywhere: students were posting their red-thumbs from schools and universities, women running with red thumbs at the Beirut Women Marathon, and actorsin theatrical play about violence against women.
On Vote Day, we wanted to transform our virtual movement to further increase the pressure, outside the parliament where MP’s were meeting.
Everyone, including the media, was prohibited from entering the session. But we were able to enter the parliament through social media.