Imagine being murdered for listening to Beyonce. Mutilated for using a mobile phone. Or forced into marriage for being seen talking to the wrong person. This is the reality for thousands of young British women.

Many people from ethnic communities, even if they have lived in the UK for generations, believe that a family’s honour is upheld by its women. When these women do things that most British women take for granted, they are brutally punished for bringing “dishonour” on their family - usually by their family.

In 2010, UK police logged 2,800+ cases of ‘honour’ based violence (HBV), but it’s likely there were many more, because it’s hard to report it when your abusers are your family and your community supports them.

We needed to raise awareness about honour-based violence and get people calling for change – this would also make abused women feel that this issue is taken seriously. We also needed to gain the support of key policy-makers and politicians to help make anti-abuse legislation more powerful.

By bringing to life a real victim’s story through a medium which is synonymous with modern Western values and female empowerment – Cosmopolitan magazine – the work forced people to recognise the truth and prevent the audience from dismissing this as an issue of “foreign culture”.

The result created a wave of public outrage; caused policy makers to support the cause, and an Annual National Day of Remembrance for the British victims of ‘honour’ killings was officially declared at The Houses of Parliament.

The work juxtaposed the magazine most famous for encouraging women to be in control of their lives, with the sheer brutality that women subject to HBV face. It contrasted an icon of Western female freedom with the appalling repression and abuse that these young women suffer.

Opening the plastic wrapper which was ‘suffocating’ the victim inside was both symbolic of the audience’s power and ability to release these girls from abuse, and in reality gave them the report outlining the measures collectively required to bring change.

The wrap was distributed to the targeted audience at a closed event at House of Commons during the launch and panel discussion of the report. The campaign was supported by a broader social media campaign which ran for 1 week. This was as planned, though later requests to hand out the cover to further influencers such as the Prime Minister were received and actioned.

In January this year, an Annual National Day of Remembrance for the British victims of honour killings was officially declared at The Houses of Parliament.

Cross-governmental support has been received to support the day of memory. All agencies’ departments have agreed to hold targeted conferences to further educate their departments and deliver tailored communications on the day of memory.

The campaign achieved 28,517,589 media impressions, 220,771.948 views and public responses of support from Home Secretary Theresa May and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

All of which drove a 94% increase in traffic to the website.