CANNES – A campaign once deemed so controversial that social media Facebook took down its video component has struck gold for the Philippines. ‘Disgusting Stories,’ a campaign to raise awareness about pedophilia and child abuse by TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno, has won a Gold Lion for Film Craft Lions at the 65th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
A public service campaign created for Bahay Tuluyan and released just a little over a month ago on May 6 to mark Global Sexual Abuse Awareness Month, ‘Disgusting Stories’ is an animated film using actual illustrations by abused children given by sociologist Dr. Elspeth McInnes of University of South Australia. Though the video had been picked up by publications and children’s rights groups globally, social media giant Facebook deemed that the video violated their community standards, took the video down, and suspended the uploader’s admin privileges.
While TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno was appealing to Facebook to restore the video to the platform, a version of the same video remained online on Vimeo for people to view and share.
Within four days, Facebook acquiesced and restored the video after the call for reinstatement had reached 141 million people from 16 countries.
That triumph was viewed as Facebook giving support to the fight against child abuse that Bahay Tuluyan continues to champion. The organization encourages everyone to report suspected abuse to the proper authorities, and help put a stop to these crimes through donations or volunteering, which funds their programs and services aimed to prevent and respond to child abuse and exploitation, and rescue the victims.
Now, the campaign is further validated for its message in the form of a Gold Lion for Film Craft Lions at Cannes Lions 2018.
A Bahay Tuluyan hotline (+63 2 254 0213) is available for those who wish to report suspected and actual child abuse. For more information, visit their website at http://www.bahaytuluyan.org/.
