Young girls who are married off haven’t had time to fully develop. Yet the social norms of their communities say they’re an acceptable age for marriage. Acceptable to walk down the aisle. To bear a child. But unacceptable to drive a car, swear, run by the pool, or vote. Our integrated campaign questions what’s acceptable for a young girl to do, to highlight the unacceptable expectation put on young girls in CEFMUs.

The most unacceptable campaign ever.

Starting with something very unacceptable. And very public. Just days out from the India vs. Pakistan game on June 10th, Virat Kohli will announce that he’s been dropped from the Indian National Cricket Team. His replacement? A 12 year old girl. Resulting in an incredible amount of conversation and outrage. What has happened to him? Who is she?

Then, a stunt. On match day, Virat walks onto the field with the 12 year old girl ‘replacement’. In the post-match press conference, he says: “If you think it’s unacceptable for this 12 year old girl to behave like an adult, then why do you think it’s acceptable for the same girl to walk down the aisle? We have to make child marriage unacceptable.”

After the PR launch, we’ll use contextual fly-postering to highlight other scenarios where it would be unacceptable for a 12 year old to be. Think behind the wheel of a car, operating heavy machinery, or performing surgery.

Then, we’ll use Meta’s Add Yours sticker feature to create a template for people to share images of themselves when they were young. The template will automatically read

“make marriage at this age unacceptable.” Providing an easy tool for users to join the conversation and creating a chain of joyful images of kids being kids coupled with a thought-provoking message that forces their followers to imagine their younger self being married. Something they would think is very unacceptable.

Finally, we’ll use the youth action platform to give young activists aged 16-26 the tools and resources to make the most unacceptable campaign ever, unacceptable in their local area. Templates for communications for them to insert unacceptable things relevant to their community. Ideas for unacceptable protests – like walking out in the middle of class. Workshops to educate young girls on what’s an acceptable expectation from their families when it comes to CEFMUs.

Overall our campaign will have widespread awareness and engagement across months and the ability to sustain long-term action. An acceptable amount we think.