Memac Ogilvy, a Riyadh-based agency, is the first, of hopefully many more, ad agencies to spearhead its first anti-abuse ad campaign in Saudi Arabia. The full-page ad is visually captivating and eerie. The whole ad is an image of a women wearing a burqa. At first you don't see anything wrong with the picture, that is until you notice her blackened eye...and then the eye draws your focus until eventually it is all you see. The words "Some things can't be covered" & "fighting women's abuse together" are listed below with the phone numbers to local domestic abuse shelters. That's all the ad is, but that is all that is needed.
I love the ad and more than that I love the imitative finally taken by this company. The ad has an effect on us all, but more so in a nation where the cultural norm is to turn a blind eye to violence and abuse facing women.
The ad does have a shock-appeal. I'm sure there are some that were probably shocked by the audacity and boldness of this ad. Scandalous, they may find it...ahhhh, but there in lies its brilliance. I believe in a nation like Saudi Arabia, their neglect of addressing serious women's rights violations and/or abuse, this is just what they need to WAKE THEM UP!
This is not about Islam or Muslims, this is about a nation's sovereignty addressing issues of domestic violence faced by many women today. It does not call into question religion, in my opinion, but how women are treated and respected.
I do not believe every man is abusing their wives, sisters, daughters...etc., nor that all women in Saudi are deprived of their rights, but the legal system does favor males and subject women to silence, submission and neglect.
Saudi women are bound by law to ask for permission from their male guardians (usually the father, brother or husband) to leave their homes and travel freely, driving is STILL viewed as a controversial issue in the eyes of society and there are no laws that protect victims from domestic abuse. "There are no laws that protect women specifically. If, for example, a woman claims rape, and a man says it was consensual, she can face a counter charge of adultery," said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. (Click the link for a 2012 world report on women's rights in Saudi Arabia).
It is not until the 2015 election will women be able to vote (LEGALLY) for the first time in Saudi history, something I am definitely looking forward to and a clear indication that there are better things to come. Saudi is improving, in women's rights, and we are starting to see hope and light at the end of the tunnel.
I thought this ad campaign was something that was very important, not just for women in Saudi, but for women all over the world and for humanity in general - we need to step up for what we believe in, stand up for what is JUST and what is RIGHT, regardless of current social normsand the ideas and views of others.
In the words of Vera Nazarian, "Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound."
LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!
"I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago."
- Edgar Allan Poe .
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