In Lebanon, there was no Law to Protect Women from Family violence. As such, domestic violence remains a big taboo, covered by the law of silence as women are constantly reluctant to report abuses. Kafa (enough violence and exploitation) is a leading NGO that has the mission to “work towards eradicating all forms of gender-based violence and exploitation of women and children through advocating for legal reform and change of policies and practices, influencing public opinion, and empowering women and children”. For years, Kafa has been working relentlessly on developing a draft law project to protect women from domestic violence . The law went back and forth for years, and remained for a long time 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. On April first 2014, the parliament was meant to meet. It was the right time for Kafa to take action. And so, three days before the parliament was set to meet, Kafa came to us to them pressure parliament to vote for the law.
Problema
Our objective was to put pressure on the Lebanese Members of Parliaments (MPs) to get them to pass the law to protect women from family violence. - So we needed to get enough people engaged in order for the MPs to feel public’s opinion pressure - And obviously, we wanted the majority of the parliamentarians to vote for Kafa’s draft to ensure it passes with the required amendments. In Lebanon, the same MPs have been in office for decades. And these same ones were getting ready again for the upcoming elections. In Lebanon, women constitute 52% of the voting force. We decided to threaten our MPs with the one weapon that could actually make a difference: OUR VOTES. In order to establish this idea of accountability and get people to talk for the first time to their political representatives at an equal level, we invited people to put a condition on their votes: WE WILL ONLY VOTE FOR THE MPS WHO WILL VOTE ON THE LAW AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. IT WAS THAT SIMPLE. In our country, when the Lebanese vote during elections, they soak their thumb in blue ink. So to symbolize our threat, we used this voting symbol and asked citizens to use their voting thumb, replacing the blue ink with the red color, the color of blood and injuries of violated women.
Resultado
We had a huge goal and only 3 days to make it happen and wanted to use our campaign to inspire a popular movement. We created a simple and relevant visual icon featuring a red thumb with a clear statement: “Vote for us so we vote for you”. We asked Kafa activists and few influencers to color their thumbs in red, post them online or show their Red Thumbs on TV. We also encouraged them to ask overtly and simply for the tradeoff: I will vote for you only if you vote for the law under the hashtag of #Nolawnovote. - We were able to create phenomenal awareness and engagement in a very short period of time: • 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 - On April 1st, THE LAW PASSED. - On May 30th, and for the first time in the history of domestic violence in Lebanon, a protection order was issued by a court. - One month later, a violent husband was sent to jail.