Brazil has a long way ahead in terms of gender equality.

Women are grossly misrepresented in public offices and private positions, the pay gap is evident, sexual harassment and physical abuse are abundant.

Sadly, one of the cruelest faces of this unbalance happens at home.

One woman is beaten in Brazil every 60 seconds. And in 80% of the cases this violence is committed by their intimate partners. Men, to be clear.

[Source: Brazilian Women at Public and Private Spaces, FPA/SESC, 2010]

Shame, fear and cultural issues prevent women from denouncing the abusers. Blaming the victim is still a reality.

To make matters worse: even when a woman is able to hold the abuser accountable -- and even when he is convicted -- his image is protected by law and cannot be exposed publicly.

How can we navigate this and spark a relevant debate?

Make-up is a symbol of femininity. In a way, it can be seen as a tool for female empowerment.

In many ad campaigns about violence agains women, make-up has also been used to simulate the effects of an aggression -- black eyes, bruises, fake blood, swollen lips.

But in real life there is much different use for make-up: many women resort to beauty products to hide the aggression from the night before. By applying some concealer on a black eye, a woman can at least pretend to lead a normal life.

We needed to turn this reality around.

For the first time, make up will not be used to hide the aggression… but to reveal the aggressor.

The Make-Up project started on April 2018 and is intended to become a permanent asset of Unimed's philosophy and patient protocols.

So far the main deliverables are:

* an audiovisual exhibition featuring the entire photography work (women and "aggressors") with sound bites of the victim's testimonials;

* newspaper ads in the São José do Rio Preto region;

* out-of-home media in the area

* online media placement on Facebook.

Originally the project was designed for the Rio Preto region only. Nevertheless, its public acceptance and social relevance have interested Unimed on a national level, which will multiply the project's reach exponentially.

Internally, the Make-Up campaign marked the implementation of the Unimed SJRP's domestic violence policy guidelines. Through an interdisciplinary approach, women receiving urgency care will be eligible to assistance by social care workers and psychologists, and connected as needed with police officials, public lawyers and temporary homes.

Externally, agreements with the mayor's office, state police, women's rights advocacy groups, public health and safety authorities will ensure that the changes are effectively improving people's lives.

People who were impacted by the campaign so far reacted with a lot of empathy. We hope that our 4 women may inspire other women to stand up for their own safety -- and that society makes no excuses to violence on women anymore.

A few estimate numbers from the initial flight:

Impressions/impacts: 359,679

Reach: 240,000

Visualizations: 107,904

Four brave Brazilian women -- Amanda, Daiane, Renata and Vanessa -- agreed to share their stories with us.

[They are violence victims assisted by Bem Querer Mulher, a non-profit women's rights advocacy group.]

Not only the women had to courage to stand up and show their faces, but they agreed to have their aggressors' faces recreated on their own faces -- through the unique work of a make-up artist.

The 4 women were filmed throughout the process, while they shared candid details of their lives with the abusers.

The resulting photography and footage are being used on a series of mediums, targeting the population across 4 cities in the São José do Rio Preto area.

Our target audience has been defined as people in a romantic relationship who are part of a family setting in the SJRP area.

Unimed is a major health provider in Brazil and the biggest cooperative of doctors in the world, being responsible for 18 million lives.

Its subsidiary Unimed SJRP offers healthcare to 240,000 members in the countryside of São Paulo state, mainly through a modern hospital which is a reference in the area.

In our work with Unimed SJRP we have pushed to go beyond medical assistance and offer treatment to what we call "social diseases".

[For reference, we recently developed a campaign against "transphobia", in which Unimed pledged to offer specialized care for transgender members.]

This time we are challenging another social disease which is very prevalent in Brazil: domestic violence against women.

Being literally the 1st place where a local wounded woman would go for assistance, Unimed SJRP is in a unique position to go beyond healthcare, support the victims, spark a debate and inspire change.