#EmpowermentNotAge
A campaign interrogating the Indian government's proposed move to raise the minimum age of marriage for girls from 18 to 21.
The #EmpowermentNotAge campaign by Oxfam India was created in response to the government establishing a Task Force to determine whether the age of marriage for girls should be raised from 18 to 21. The campaign used factual evidence and scientific research to contest that such a move would be beneficial to girls and women, and offered solutions to curbing early marriage by addressing the root causes of the phenomenon – namely societal norms, poverty, and lack of girls’ education.
I worked alongside the Oxfam India Gender Justice team on the digital leg of the campaign. We aimed to engage the public by encouraging them to write to their local MPs using email & phone templates, as well as a social media toolkit.
We released 9 infographics, 2 comics and 2 videos, in English and Hindi, explaining the issue, highlighting youth voices and debunking myths surrounding the issue. We also published 5 articles on various media platforms and created Twitter threads and Instagram stories to engage with people directly on social media platforms. The campaign also initiated partnerships with youth-focussed feminist platforms such as Vitamin Stree and Feminism In India, which had a huge impact of reaching out to young people and educating them about the issue.
SELECTED POSTERS
I worked with feminist illustrator Upasana Agarwal to create these posters. See all posters from the campaign using #EmpowermentNotAge on Instagram.
SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
Through our partnership with Feminism in India, we ran a series on Twitter and Instagram that explained the issue in five simple points, and mapped the audience's views on the issue before and after the explanation. Both series showed a sharp change in people's opinions after going through the points!
