We brought to life the religious laws that allows girls as young as 9 to legally wed. We wanted to highlight the existence of such practices in an emotional way live at the Corniche, Lebanon’s most famous public space visited by all types of 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religious law to life made all witnesses feel the heat in its reality, as all daughters could be victims of such an outdated rule.

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

The film was posted 48 hours later on KAFA’s Facebook and YouTube accounts and on all pages where the picture was shared previously.

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.

In Lebanon, a girl can legally be forced into marriage even she’s as young as 9. Women’s rights NGO wanted to rally public support to challenge the Lebanese religious institutions that still allow child marriage.

Our campaign started with an on-ground social experiment in one of the most famous public spaces in Beirut, where we staged a photo-shoot portraying the ancestral religious laws in Lebanon that allow child marriage.

Our social-experiment was posted online and it spread like wildfire across the globe.

We used social media pages since it was the best way not to risk any censorship by authorities.

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.