Ad of the Day: Free a Girl Movement takes underage girls out of India’s brothels and into law school in The School for Justice campaign
J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam has gone beyond the traditional ad campaign for India’s burgeoning ‘Free a Girl Movement’ with its work to create a School for Justice where victims of child prostitution in India are taught law, enabling them to prosecute the criminals responsible.
The School for Justice, which opens in India today (6 April) is both a school and an education programme for girls from all school levels that offers the support, tuition and mentoring that they need to reach university level.
Once at that level they will spend five years studying law to get to their Bachelor of Law – to ultimately lobby the government to become public prosecutors to challenge India’s legal system from within.
India has the most underage sex workers in the world with an estimated 1.2 million children working in brothels against their will. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the amount of prosecutions against those involved is incredibly low. In 2015 there were only 55 cases that led to convictions. There is no data on 2016 yet.
Bas Korsten, executive creative director at J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam explained: “We were approached to come up with an ad campaign to raise awareness about child prostitution in India for the Free a Girl Movement. When we found out that hardly any of the criminals responsible for these crimes are punished we quickly realised that a ‘normal’ ad campaign wasn't going to cut it.
"We needed to go beyond the brief and think of a radical and more fundamental approach. We came up with the idea of setting up a School for Justice where the victims of child prostitution are taught law, thus empowering them to prosecute the criminals who once owned them. The School for Justice is a very real solution to a problem – as well as a communication idea to raise awareness. We are truly proud and honoured to have built this concept from the ground up.”
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