Gabriela Duct Tape

A small scale ambient idea that really works. No wonder it won bronze at the Cannes Lions 2008! Really nice idea and execution.

Euro 08 Campaign against Trafficking in Women

This campaign from Switzerland, the Euro 08 campaign against Trafficking in Women, is an initiative launched by more than 25 women’s and men’s organisations, Human Rights organisations, gender equality offices, counselling centres, faith organisations and trade unions. The campaign aims not only to raise awareness on the trafficking of women in Switzerland but also to mobilise its population on this very serious form of Human Rights violation.
Every year an estimated two and a half million human beings are trafficked worldwide, 80% are women.

How to carry on the family name

Gold Lion in Cannes in the category Press.
Anti Female Foeticide is a big social problem in India. Every year 1.1 million unborn baby girls die before they are born.This isn’t the first time I see a ad about it, shocking. Even more shocking when reading the text in this ad.
Ad is from AADHAR. Agency: Contract India, Mumbai.

Every hour, a woman is abused

This indoor guerilla campaign just got a 2008 Finalist Certificate at the New York Festivals (innovative advertising award). The campaign is from Gabriela Women’s Party (Philippines), a sectoral party dedicated to promoting the rights and welfare of marginalized and under-represented Filipino women through participation in the country’s electoral system and organs of governance.

To advocate awareness on the increasing rate of domestic violence in the Philippines through an ad that can be seen on a regular basis. According to records of the Philippines National Police, a woman is physically abused by her partner every hour.
Modified clocks were placed in offices, women’s dorms, school canteens, police stations, train terminals and other places with high pedestrian traffic. The clock has a picture of an angry man place on the minute hand and a picture of a battered woman placed on the hour hand.

Verbal abuse can be just as horrific

Three ads from the Aware Helpline in Singapore showing that domestic violence include verbal abuse also.
Copy: “Verbal abuse can be just as horrific. But you don’t have to suffer in silence. Call the Aware Helpline for advice and support, monday to friday from 3PM to 9.30 PM on 1800 774 5935.”

Stop the daily rapes in Darfur

Brilliant design, shocking message from Amnesty International Hungary.
“My camp is my home, and the men here are part of my family. I don’t want to let them die by the hands of the melitiamen. So I made a decision in order to keep the men out of danger, I get the firewood myself. That is my gift for them; to face rape every day.”
Stop the daily rapes in Darfur.

Regrets of a man

New video from Pablo Olmos Arrayales showing a father and his son speaking about domestic violence. No violence is seen but this minute of images and words explode right into your face. Very well done. (full credits here)

Related posts with work from Pablo Olmos:

- Remember the ones that forget
- El escondite

Paint Your Ballot campaign wins Kreatura

I just came back from Warsaw, where I was in the jury of the Polish advertising festival Kreatura. The jury’s favourite was the viral campaign ‘Daj Glos / Paint Your Voting Card’ by Koledzy Strategia & Kreacja. This campaign supported a grassroots initiative to encourage young people to vote on the 2007 parliamentary elections in Poland. The idea was quite simple – give more colour to your vote. Viewers could paint their ballots (voting cards), share their creations on YouTube and DajGlos.com, and cast their painted ballots (which were valid according to the Polish law). The ‘Daj Glos’ campaign and its spokesman Viktor z Bielska received the Special Kreatura Award.

Abusing tentacles

Brrr, this video really gives me the creeps. Very well done by agency Red Rabbit.
This PSA demonstrates the unbearable trauma, sexual abused children suffer from. Girls and women in the TV ad have their space invaded by long hairy phallic slug-like tentacles.
The video is from Dunkelziffer e.V., the German help organisation for sexual abused children.
Thanks Michael.

Take Back Your Words

A poster campaign from the Women’s Aid Organisation of Malaysia to encourage people to speak up against female abuse. The posters, portraying women of different ages, were covered in post−it notes bearing insults, and viewers were urged to ‘take back the abusive words’ by removing the post−it notes and signing the petition on the back.

We All Walk in Different Shoes

We All Walk in Different Shoes is an interesting campaign from fashion house Kenneth Cole, which celebrates 25 years of non-uniform thinkers. “Appearance can be a defining characteristic for us all but it’s the ability to think differently that really makes a difference.”

International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation

“3 million girls are circumcized every year, and over 130 million women have been subjected to genital cutting or mutilation. Even if France publicly condemns this practice, thousands of girls remain at risk on the french territory.”
This French ad was made for the International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation held on February 6.

An estimated 120 to 140 million women have been subjected to the practice and 3 million girls continue to be at risk each year. The practice violates the basic rights of women and girls and seriously compromises their health, posing risks during childbirth, and leaving lasting physical and psychological scars.
Contrary to popular belief, female genital mutilation or cutting is not required by any religion. In fact, many religious leaders and scholars and faith-based organizations from around the world have called for the practice to be banned.

You can join this cause at Facebook.
Or visit the dedicated website (in French)

Statutory rape

Three ads about teen pregnacy from United Way of Greater Milwaukee. A recent study found that Milwaukee has the 7th highest rate of birth to teens in the USA. In 2006, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee approached Serve, a non-profit advertising agency, to request help in raising awareness about the problem.

Serve focused on statutory rape for this particular campaign because in Wisconsin it is a huge part of the teen pregnancy crisis. In Wisconsin: 71% of babies born to teen girls are fathered by adult males over 20 years old.  In 20% of the cases, the fathers are at least six year older than the mothers.
Serve give us the opportunity to look behind the scenes making a campaign with some exerpts of a video made during talks in a focus group.

Stop forced marriages

Three ads from Terre des Femmes from Switzerland. They fight for equal rights for all women in spite of their background or religion.
This campaign is about forced marriages.
The campaign was launched last December as a outdoor campaign and will continue this year with magazine ads.

Copy: In der Schweiz leben über 1000 Frauen in Gefangenschaft - Stoppt Zwangsheirat
More than 1000 women live as prisoners in Switzerland. Stop forced marriages. 

The threat isn’t on the outside

Three ads from the women’s aid center NO2Violence in Israel. Most women are threated with violence and any form of abuse inside their homes.
Copy: “For many women the threat isn’t on the outside.”

Stop child sex

A new law prohibits Singaporeans from engaging in child prostitution while overseas. Pay for sex with someone under 18 and you will be prosecuted upon returning to Singapore.
These ads are from Singapore department of Unifem, the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Tag line: “When you slept with her / When you get out of jail”

Show respect at the Booby Wall

There are a lot of breasts on the internet, but there’s nothing like this. In support of Rethink Breast Cancer, Schick Quattro for Women launched the Booby Wall, a virtual, interactive exhibit of breasts designed to educate Canadian women about early breast cancer detection by encouraging them to show their breasts some TLC.
The Booby Wall was created to bring Rethink’s Touch. Look. Check. (TLC) early detection program to life. Women across Canada are encouraged to touch and look at their breasts and then take a picture of their breasts to upload to the Booby Wall. This online gallery is designed to remind women about the importance of breast health.

Breast cancer: detect on time

This year’s video from AECC (Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer), the Spanish organisation fighting against breast cancer.
“El cáncer de mama se cura si se detecta a tiempo.”
“Breast cancer is bestly cured if it is detected on time.”

Just because they are girls

New campaign from Amnesty International Austria.
In Indien sterben jährlich tausende mädchen nur weil sie mädchen sind.
In India every year thousands of girls get killed just because they are girls.
(English version of the poster inside)

Top Jobs Abroad

Every year, thousands of young women are tricked into prostitution through the false promise of a better job abroad.
Now STOP THE TRAFFIK (together with Belgian agency Duval Guillaume) have come up with a confronting idea to raise awareness about this injustice and gather signatures for a declaration to the UN to help set up a global fund to fight human trafficking.

I Am Elena

If the slave trade was abolished in the UK over 200 years ago, why are more than 80 women trafficked here every week and sold for sexual exploitation?

How to remove/save a breast

Bronze at the Cannes Lions 2007 in the category Outdoor.
Ad from ACP magazine and the Breast Cancer Welfare Association Malaysia.

Telephone wire

Ad from the Brazilian telephone helpline for woman ALERJ.
Copy: Você liga, a gente age.
You call, we act (Thanks Rafael)

Many use food to communicate

“Many use food to communicate their need for help.
Only a few understand that.”

PCOS affects millions of women worldwide

I never heard about PCOS before until Noah from ALR design pointed me to Implementing Designism, a website where Amanda Kohn created a showcase for the purpose of promoting increased awareness of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).

Wet your finger and rub

I have seen a lot of shockvertising but this one is a real needle in the eye. This postcard is from AMAM, a Spanish organisation fighting against genital mutilation. 

Like to watch?

Nearly half of the more than six million pregnancies in the United States each year are unplanned, and if current rates continue, nearly half of all American women will face an unintended pregnancy at some point in their lives, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That’s the focus of the Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (PPGG) in their thirth tv-spot. The tv-spot features a hip, young couple that is saved from engaging in unprotected sex by divine intervention. Even angels like to watch.

I feel embarrassed

- Ad two, I don’t have time.
- Ad three, I feel embarrassed.

Three ads made for O Câncer de Mama no Alvo da Moda, the Brazilian version of Fashion Targets Breast Cancer (FTBC).

It’s not the hormonal rages

In 2005 ZIJ-KANT (the Belgium progressive women’s movement) and ABVV Women (Belgium socialist trade union) launched Equal Pay Day in Belgium for the first time.

Gender equality off-air in Ireland

Little Snow-white and the mirror issue

Incomplete

Portuguese abortion battle

On February 11 the Portuguese people are asked to vote in a referendum for the second time in 9 years about the abortion issue.
The question of the referendum has been decided as “Are you in agreement with the legalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, if carried out, by the woman’s choice, in the first ten weeks in a legally authorized health institution?
In 1998 it was the first national referendum in the Portuguese history. The law project was made by the Communist Party and it decriminalized abortion before the 10 weeks of pregnancy and was considered by the left as the only way to put an end to the estimated 50.000 illegal abortions in the country. The referendum was held in the summer, the turnout was so low that it didn’t pass the threshold of 50% of the voters needed to make the decision official. The result of this was that abortion still is illegal until now.
And since then some cops and judges felt they were legitimated to really presecute women who had abortions. And there were a few trials and a few sentences, although nobody is gone to jail, they now have a criminal record (mostly poor women, because rich women can go to spanish clinics).

Act until women and children are safe

On 1st February 2007 Women’s Aid, the national domestic violence charity, launches a national domestic violence awareness campaign to ask everyone to ‘act until women and children are safe’– that is - admit domestic abuse is a problem, call it by its name and talk to someone about it . The campaign, which has been photographed by Rankin, uses head and shoulder portraits of famous female faces, made up to show the physical effects of domestic violence. 

Stop Female Infanticide