We created a disturbing online tool called 'Put a Price on your Precious' (Schat je schatje/Estimez votre trésor). As we all know, parents like to share pictures of their kids on Facebook. This tool lets them personalize generic data. People can calculate the price criminals would pay for a child like their own. The estimation - based on appalling but real data - takes into account 4 criteria: gender, age, skin and hair. It results in a price tag on a picture of their own child or an anonymous look-a-like.

By sharing this picture they bring the shocking problem very close to home for all their Facebookfriends. This the anonymous figures get a too familiar face.

Financial data, law enforcement reports, investigative journalism and social research from multiple sources was brought together into a single algorithm. The data was clustered into 4 different relevant groups so that the calculation of the price was based on 4 criteria: gender, age, skin and hair. Making sure that users got a representative value for their specific child.

This gave the anonymous data a very familiar face.

On the 18th of November, European Day against sexual exploitation of children, the campaign was launched through a live press conference on Facebook.

At the same moment celebrities started sharing the campaign.

• The price calculator was used more than 170.000 times (In one single day)

• We reached 15.940.818 people (population of Belgium = 11 million),

• got picked up by national tv and radio,

• headlined all newspapers and -sites,

• became the trending topic on social media.

• We got at least € 374.845 earned media.

Without any media budget we got the entire country talking about sexual abuse of minors in Europe. Creating awareness as a crucial step to protection and prevention.

This campaign is based on appalling but real data: figures on the sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Europe. But instead of shocking people with the facts, we let them confront themselves with a very personal reality. Parent and grandparents can calculate the price criminals would pay for a child like their own.

By instantly sharing their child's picture with a price tag, they become our messenger to all of their Facebook-friends. This way the overwhelming but impersonal data became tangible an very personal.

Our target audience: all adults in Belgium, especially parents and grandparents. They know sexual exploitation of minors exists, but think it only happens in exotic countries, not in Europe. They consider it to be a faraway-issue.

We can counter this false perception head-on by using real data - about the sex trade of minors in Europe.

Nevertheless a no-nonsense 'facts only' approach will not do the job. We have to touch people, make them feel it is going on close to home and could even happen to them.

That's why we confront people with the horrifying truth by making them translate the big data into something very personal. Not a shocking campaign but a personal discovery.

We make them share the data in the same way they already act every day: by sharing pictures of their children with all their friends and family.

We gathered data from different sources: law enforcement reports, investigative journalism and social research. The available data was interpreted and used in an algorithm that takes into account four criteria: gender, age, skin and hair.

Most Belgians think sexual exploitation and traficking of children only happens in far away countries. They don’t realise it also happens close to home. Where children like their own fall victim to grooming, and loverboys.

Child grooming is befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child to lower the child's inhibitions for child sexual abuse. Luring them into child prostitution or the production of child pornography.

Loverboys are men that start a relationship with a young girl and provide material support to make her dependent on them, only to later demand repayment through forced prostitution

Child Focus - the Belgian Center for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children - wants to create awareness about this horrifying fact.

Objective: make all adults in Belgium aware of the existence of sexual exploitation of minors close to home

Challenge: no media budget