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 few TV anchors to colour their thumbs in red and post them online.
Like wildfire, from a day to another, 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. Red thumbs kept on coming in from Lebanon and all over the world, with numerous messages of support.
In less than 72 hours our red thumbs created an unprecedented wave of engagement.
More than 22 million Twitter impressions in the first 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[5]
• 1.7 million USD in earned media
• 2 million people exposed to the campaign from the TV news coverage only in a country of 4 million
2- On April 1st 2014, while our red thumbs were waiting outside the parliament, the law passed.
In Lebanon there was no Law to Protect Women from Family violence, in a society that is still very patriarchal and where the judicial system is affected by corruption.
For years, Kafa (leading NGO) has been working relentlessly on developing a draft law project to y 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.
The year 2014, witnessed a dramatic increase in numbers of domestic violence victims, many of whom lost their lives murdered by their husbands.
Kafa was more than ever committed to have the law voted by parliament to provide Lebanese women with a legal protection.
On April first 2014, the parliament was meant to meet. It was the right time for Kafa to take action.
And so, 3 days before the parliament was set to meet, Kafa came to us to them pressure parliament to vote for the law.