The Campaign

Rather than make the traumatized children tell their story of sexual abuse, we used their drawings.

Creative Execution

Bahay Tuluyan ( Shelter House) of the Philippines, told their stories through an animated film using actual illustrations by abused children given by sociologist Dr. Elspeth McInnes of University of South Australia. To generate "talkability" about the film, we used a Grammy Nominated Song Torn, a popular song that was arranged unexpectedly. We engaged the young people of Manila, our most influential social media activists to support the advocacy. The film was posted in Bahay Tuluyan's Facebook page. We faced the risks of being taken down, with Facebook's controversial censorship policy banning content from art works, pro-life groups to the famous napalmed girl of Vietnam.

Within 24 hours after being uploaded, the film spread around the world reaching 141 million people across 16 countries, earning 78 Million pesos worth of media values. And true enough, Facebook pulled it down soon after, and suspended the uploader’s admin privileges for supposedly violating their community standards. Once again the stories of abused children were silenced. Local and International media including concerned communities reacted to the censorship. Online news company Rappler, made a call to “Stop the Silence”. Facebook eventually reinstated the film. “You can’t watch this and not want to scream, but also help out somehow. It will make you sad. It will make you angry. It is as brutal an indictment of our world as almost anything–and that’s entirely the point. “ -Fast Company

The film is a haunting animation of actual drawings by sexually abused children donated by a Sociologist. It used a Grammy Nominated Song Torn, a popular song that was arranged unexpectedly. We used the love song Torn in the context of child abuse. A father is every child’s first hero, or first love. Someone perfect and someone who seems to really care. Until the child realizes who he really is. And the feeling is replaced with helplessness, hatred and fear.

The stories of abused children are not easy to talk about. Because of fear and shame, conversations about it are rare. The victims and their families “keep the stories a secret”. Those who speak out are punished for doing so and are subjected to negative reactions which discourage rape survivors from talking about their stories to anyone. We need to break the silence through a radical and humanizing approach so the stories of abused children can be shared bravely.