Advertising agencies throughout the world are offering their creative expertise to build campaigns to fight poverty, violence and inequality. That’s wonderful. Some are even doing so pro bono. Even better. JWT Amsterdam has also taken the next step.
It explained why here: “Free a Girl movement asked us to come up with an ad campaign to raise awareness of child prostitution in India. When we found out that hardly any of the criminals responsible for these crimes are punished – in 2015 there were 1.2 million girls in forced prostitution vs. 55 cases that led to convictions – we realised that a ‘normal’ ad campaign wasn’t going to cut it. We needed to go beyond the brief and think of a more fundamental approach. A TV ad only runs for a few weeks. We wanted an idea that would last for the next decade.”
As well as having the highest numbers of child prostitutes in the world, India also sees some of the worst conditions, with victims frequently living in inhumane conditions and suffering severe crimes against their human rights – such as being locked up in cages. Girls as young as 7 are abducted from their homes, sold to human traffickers and often tortured to cooperate.
With so few perpetrators being punished, underage prostitution continues. In addition to a culture of impunity, there is a dire shortage of good lawyers and judges with in-depth knowledge on human trafficking and child prostitution to change anything.
The agency has initiated a program called School for Justice, a real school educating educating some of the young women who previously worked in brothels, to become lawyers. Nineteen former underage sex workers between the ages of 19 and 26 began their studies on April 6. The agency hopes that one day they will become prosecutors, or even judges, prosecuting the criminals who once exploited and abused them.
The idea was first put into action one and a half years ago. The School for Justice is both a school and an education programme for girls from all school levels that offers the support, tuition and mentoring that they need to reach university level. Once at that level, they will spend five years studying law to get to their Bachelor of Law. And the School is working with one of India’s most respected law universities to offer the unique programme.
The 2017 is underway, plans for the 2018 intake are in motion and the School intends to expand exponentially in the years to come.
JWT has also engaged the help of Bollywood star and ambassador of Free a Girl Movement, Malika Sherawat, to spread the word.
The School for Justice was officially opened with a press conference in Mumbai, featuring the Free a Girl Movement legal expert, Meenakshi Arora, Neela Satyanaryana (the first woman to be appointed as the State Election Commissioner of Maharashtra), ambassador Abhay Mokashi, and Free a Girl Movement chief executive officer, Francis Gracias, plus spokesperson, Tapoti Bhowmick.
