VISION researchers launch video series to educate the public and empower victims to seek support as part of an awareness campaign into gender-based violence in Iran.
By Eve Lacroix (Senior Communications Officer), Published
"Unfortunately, many still don’t understand what violence truly is. Raising awareness is the solution," shared one respondent into a survey on violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Iran.
According to the UN Fact-Finding Mission, the country is marked by its patriarchal structure and systematic and pervasive gender discrimination. Educational programmes addressing this issue are scarce, and cultural barriers often hinder open discussion.
To overcome the silence around this topic, City St George’s, University of London academics Dr Ladan Hashemi and Professor Sally McManus have launched the United to End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign.
Launched on Monday 25 November 2024, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls, the campaign saw the creation of a series of animated videos designed to inform public discourse and to empower victims to seek support, based on the results of the survey.
Using animations to reach the international diaspora and educate the public
The survey, which collected responses from 453 women in Iran about VAWG in Iran and women’s perspectives on how to eliminate it, was designed by Fatima Babakhani, CEO of the Iran-based NGO Mehre Shams Afarid.
Its results suggest that change is possible through education and legal reforms, despite structural inequalities and deeply ingrained societal, cultural, and religious norms that perpetuate VAWG.
To do so, the animations covered coercive control, economic abuse and technology-facilitated abuse, which are forms of abuse that can sometimes be difficult to recognise. It also includes a video on active bystander interventions.
Using this video format helped researchers make their findings more accessible.
There are two further animations in development.
An international collaboration to reach the diaspora
Dr Hashemi and Professor McManus are members of the Violence & Society research consortium (VISION) at City St George’s and led the campaign.
The campaign was funded by City St George’s Higher Education Impact Fund (HEIF) Knowledge Exchange and by VISION Consortium Knowledge Exchange Fund.
They collaborated with colleagues from other British universities, including the University of Bristol, Goldsmiths University, Animation Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts, and Leeds Beckett University.
Cultural sensitivity is a key issue in making sure a message is well received. To help researchers to incorporate culturally specific insights in, they worked with an animation production team in Iran, a social media advisor, and the advisory groups Mehre Shams Afarid and IKWRO, a London-based charity providing services to women victims of violence from the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region.
Influencers and women’s rights activists with followings from thousands to millions were partnered with to amplify the campaign’s reach.
Another goal of the campaign was to reach a wide audience – both people within Iran as well as the wider MENA diaspora, which is why animators added English subtitles to the animations.
Dr Hashemi said:
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