In Estonia, the legal age of sexual consent is only 14. Every year, 14-year-old children get sexually abused because of it and yet, all previous attempts to change this law have failed. The problem is, people think a 14-year-old is fully capable of giving sexual consent to an older adult. Our creative strategy was to show the public what a 'consensual relationship' between a 14-year-old and an older adult actually looks like. So people would instantly see that at 14, a girl or a boy is just a child and how easily an older adult can manipulate this child.

In Estonia, the legal age of sexual consent is only 14. At 14, a child is too young to understand the dangers that come with sexual consent. Every year, 14-year-old children get sexually abused because of this law and yet, all previous attempts to change it have failed. There is no consensus among political parties and lawmakers on this topic. Neither is there any public pressure on them to take action. Problem is, people think 14 is OK. Comments like ‘she knew exactly what she was doing’, ‘she wanted it’ or ‘she must have led him on' weren’t uncommon. Our goal was to protect 14-year-old children from sexual abuse by changing the public mindset and raising public pressure on politicians and lawmakers to increase the legal age of sexual consent.

In Estonia, the legal age of sexual consent is only 14. For years, articles and interviews by opinion leaders, child specialists and activists have failed to move the public and lawmakers. Horrifying cases of sexual abuse involving 14-year-olds would emerge in the media and die down. The core reason for this public apathy was the underlying misconception that a 14-year-old is fully capable of giving sexual consent to an older adult. We had to drive public awareness around the fact that a 14-year-old is not mature enough to understand the dangers that come with sexual consent because this child can easily be manipulated into believing it's 'consensual sex', even if he or she is being sexually abused. If we could make the public realise how dangerous this law is, we could raise public pressure on politicians and lawmakers to take immediate action to increase the legal age of sexual consent.

We analysed hundreds of articles and news reports around this topic from the last 5 years, which included horrifying cases of sexual abuse involving 14-year-old girls and boys. We found that in order to protect the identity of the alleged victim, none of the stories had ever shown the 14-year-old or published photos of the 14-year-old together with the alleged abuser. If only people could actually see a 14-year-old in a 'consensual relationship' with a much older adult, they would immediately see that at 14, a girl or boy is just a child and realise how easy it is for an older adult to manipulate this child. But if the public knew it was a staged relationship using actors, it would not have the desired impact. Therefore we would have to create a fictional relationship between a 14-year-old child and a much older adult and make it look real.

We bought a content marketing space on one of Estonia's leading online news portals and on Estonia's largest daily newspaper. Both are known for sensational news. We published a horrifying story about the 'consensual relationship' between 14-year-old Piia Heivdal and 54-year-old Kristo Terrandi. The story was fictional, but we carefully crafted the text and photos in a way that would make people initially think it was a real tabloid style news interview about a real child in danger right now! We even integrated native design elements of the news publication. As planned, people completely missed the 'content marketing' sign and continued reading in horror. Only at the end, when people realised it was a campaign, they also realised in the most impactful way how dangerous this law is for our children. To convert public awareness and outrage into public action and political pressure, we gave people the hashtag #14isnotOK

Within 24 hours, the story and photos of 14-year-old Piia and 54-year-old Kristo went viral. The campaign sparked a nationwide movement where people raised their voice against the law to say ''14 is not OK''. Influencers and victims who had been sexually abused at 14 shared their stories using #14isnotOK. Despite a campaign budget of just €5000, the campaign crossed 1 million+ impressions in a country of 1.4 million people, and was covered across top digital, TV and radio news and talk shows. Story read 204,000+ times. Images clicked 300,000+ times. 25,000+ comments and reactions. But most importantly, the Ministry of Justice introduced a new bill to raise the legal age of sexual consent to 16. The bill was drafted in collaboration with Estonian Sexual Health Association. On 1st June, 2022, the bill will become the law. 14 will no longer be OK in our law, or in our society.

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