Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

Example: The Bursting the Bubble campaign is an initiative of the Domestic Violence
Resource Centre of Victoria (Australia), a government-funded service for people
affected by domestic violence. The campaign uses the internet to reach teenagers who
have witnessed physical domestic violence against their mother or stepmother, or who
have experienced direct physical, emotional or sexual abuse by a parent or care-giver.
The colorful campaign site is designed to “help you to work out what’s okay in a family
and what’s not”, and offers guidance as to how teenagers can protect themselves and
where they can seek help. 72% per cent of the viewers who participated in an on-line
survey stated they would use the tips provided on the website.
A fuller case study is available in E-Campaigning in the Campaign Communications
section of this module.
3. Showing that VAW affects the entire society and must be stopped: This
approach, also inspired by the health belief model, aims to encourage people who
consider they are not directly affected by VAW, to recognize it as a problem that
needs to be addressed. It can be an effective element in campaigning for
policy/institutional change.
Example: In several countries, studies are available which calculate the cost of VAW for
the national economy (e.g. Report by the Australia National Council to Reduce Violence
against Women and Children, 2009). The findings from such studies can be usefully
integrated in this type of campaign.
For similar studies, see the Costs and Consequences section of Programming
Essentials Module on this site.
4. Addressing perpetrators and encouraging them to change:
Example: A well-known, successful example is the Western Australian Freedom from
Fear campaign, which combined several approaches, showing that domestic violence is
a crime that can result in legal sanctions, that spouse abuse also harms children, and
that violence-prone men need specialized treatment. This campaign is anchored in the
health belief model that seeks to influence the targets by exposing the harmful effects of
undesirable behaviour, and offering practical guidance as to how such potential harm
could be averted – in this case, by seeking socio-psychological treatment. Within the
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Campaigns December 2011