Our strategy was simple, we aimed at bringing to life the religious law s in Lebanon that allow girls as young as 9 to legally wed. We wanted to highlight the existence of such a religious law and put it in full-action live at the Corniche, Lebanon’s most active public platform visited by people from all religions and social classes.

In order to do that, a photoshoot was staged on Beirut’s Corniche between a middle-aged man and a young girl no more than 11 years of age, his bride. The photoshoot was filmed along with countless reactions of outraged bystanders protesting against the act.

Bringing this religious law to life made all witnesses feel the heat in its reality, as all daughters could be victims of such outdated rules.

A picture, showing the old groom and the young bride, taken during the social experiment was posted live on social media and triggered a conversation while people went on sharing it and claiming their outrage.

The film was posted 48h later on KAFA’s Facebook and YouTube accounts.

The film was then organically posted on numerous local and regional news pages and accounts, allowing for a much wider reach and massive shares.

It is safe to say that the online viral aspect of the filmed stunt spiraled out of our control as it gained immense local, regional, and international exposure.

- More than 100 million organic views spread across different accounts and platforms

- More than 100 publications and TV channels in more than 50 countries covered the story, among which are The Huffington Post, The independent, The DailyMail, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, CNN, France 2 , TV5

- 95% of the Lebanese Internet population reached.

- More than 700 million people reached worldwide

- Facebook: 99.97% positive sentiment

- Few weeks later, the UN adopted our campaign to be its own.

- Later, a famous prankster was inspired by our campaign and replicated our social experiment in Times Square New York.

Through a live social experiment of a child-wedding photoshoot in the most popular area in Beirut, we were able to shock the dwellers and consequently brought these live emotions to everyone who watched the film online. By “physically” seeing the archaic laws, our target was able to understand what child marriage truly entails.

A photo leaked online prior to the release of our film stirred shock as audiences thought the wedding was real. This allowed the film to maximize its momentum when released eventually leading to national and international outrage from all walks of life in a matter of hours.

Our audience is primarily the Lebanese public, including public figures, influencers, people at large: anyone and everyone who could put pressure on the religious authorities.

Our second target was to reach a regional and international level and maximize awareness on the archaic laws, as well as increase the pressure.

The video was posted on YouTube and embedded on Facebook. Facebook was used as the main platform of the campaign, where the video gathered views and reactions from the audience.

The platform allowed users to share the video directly from KAFA’s page and react on it, tagging their friends and commenting with their opinion. With the controversial nature of the content the conversation on Facebook helped promote the awareness and outrage we were seeking.

In Lebanon, more than 13% of girls get married before they’re 18.

There is no CIVIL law for marriage, so you can only get wed under religious law, and all religious sects in Lebanon allow child marriage.

So a girl as young as 9 can legally get married.

The NGO KAFA approached us to pressure Lebanese religious institutions so we can give KAFA the popular pressuring tools to use against child marriage.

Our objective was to raise awareness on the issue and rally public support around the cause.