Our red thumbs proliferated everywhere: students were posting their red-thumbs from schools and universities, women running with red thumbs at the Beirut Women Marathon, and actors showing the public their red thumbs, on stage, while acting in theatrical play about violence against women.

On D- Day, we wanted to transform our virtual movement into an on the ground protest to further increase the pressure.

MP’s were meeting inside the parliament. We were outside on the street.

The faces of the MP’s voting for the law were placated outside of the parliament LIKE A GIANT OUTDOOR DISPLAY, and each time an MP was voting against the law, his/her face was covered with the activist’s red thumbs.

In Lebanon there was no Law to Protect Women from Family violence, in a society that is still very patriarchal and where the judicial system is affected by corruption.

After years of lobbying, a law against domestic violence drafted by the NGO Kafa was finally going to be proposed for voting in Parliament.

Kafa came to us to help them put pressure on Members of Parliament. Women representing 52% of the voting force, we decided to threaten the MPs with the one weapon that could make a difference: OUR VOTES.

The campaign was a huge success as we managed to achieve our overall objective.

1- We were able to create phenomenal awareness and engagement in a very short period of time:

• More than 22 million Twitter impressions in the first 2 weeks from 51 countries

• More than 20,000 physical and digital red thumbs gathered

• A 700% increase in online conversations about domestic violence

• A 350% increase in comments on Kafa’s Facebook page

• A 23% increase in followers on Kafa’s Twitter page[5]

• 1.7 million USD in earned media

• 2 million people exposed to the campaign from the TV news coverage only in a country of 4 million

2- On April 1st 2014, while our red thumbs were waiting outside the parliament, the law passed.

We had a huge goal and only 3 days to make it happen and wanted to use our campaign to inspire a popular movement.

We created a simple and relevant visual icon featuring a red thumb with the statement: “Vote for us so we vote for you”.

We asked Kafa activists and influencers to color their thumbs in red, post them online or show their Red Thumbs on TV. We also encouraged them to couple their posts with threatening statements against politicians, asking simply for the tradeoff: I will vote for you only if you vote for me.

Like wildfire, from a day to another, people from all walks of life, age, and religions joined our movement; celebrities endorsed our cause; media anchors actively supported our movement; brands and institutions joined in. Red thumbs kept on coming in from Lebanon and all over the world, with numerous messages of support.