2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Many females in Saudi Arabia consider that violence committed against them by their husbands, fathers, or brothers is justifiable culturally. They tend to refrain from discussing the abuse or seeking support when they, or someone they know, are exposed to it. Their silence is simply wrong and is the cause of the problem. We wanted to communicate a simple but controversial message. “Sukotik Alamat Al Rida.” A famous Arabic proverb that refers to silence as a sign of approval, usually in a positive context. By slightly tweaking it, we addressed the women and shifted the meaning to become: “Your silence (to abuse) shows your acceptance.”

Creative Execution

During the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in November 2016, we released an online video showing a woman who is enduring different forms of physical and emotional abuse while remaining silent. We supported the video with social media communication to cover the topic from different angles. Our message resonated and touched the hearts of our audience, who in return ignited the conversation on social media. We augmented our message with a digital experience that educated women about abuse and their rights, and provided a tool where they can show there support and solidarity with the victims. By taking a photo of their face, the tool converted it and showed bruises and hit marks, for them to live the horrors of domestic violence, and download it, or share privately on Whatsapp with their friends and family.

Thousand of women responded to our campaign. Other leading NGOs like King Khaled Foundation, King Abdullah Foundation, and Wai’ya supported and participated in the campaign. More than 6 million users reached by the campaign, resulting in 33,000+ participations as an act of support on the microsite

In order for our message to resonate with our audience, and promote sharing and driving word-of-mouth, we thought of provoking our target audience by blaming them for the current state of mind with regard to the secrecy and naive contentment of violence committed against them.