The rapists and murderers of recently killed veterinarian doctor from Hyderabad were shot dead in a police encounter by the Telangana Police on December 6, 2019. While the city is celebrating the deaths of these criminals, the Unnao rape survivor is still fighting for her life in the hospital after being set ablaze, a day before. And elsewhere in the country, a woman is still a victim of gender based violence by a man who promised to care for her for life.
Violence against women is in fact taken for granted, especially when the perpetrator of such violence is an intimate partner, husband or a family member. It is very important to address gender-based violence in the country to stop the heinous crimes committed against women. Collective activism is required to spread awareness, and inspiration for survivors of violence to speak up and seek help. Most importantly, a message needs to be delivered to the abusers that the world is against their actions, they will get punished if they continue with their behaviour and most importantly, their actions are disgusting.
TikTok campaign against gender-based violence
TikTok in collaboration with UN Women has initiated a campaign called #KaunsiBadiBaatHai to raise awareness against violence against women in India. TikTok, an entertainment media app, has more than 500 million active users in it. Utilising its active user base to raise awareness for the cause, UN Women has rolled off ‘Orange The World’ Campaign on the platform.
As part of the TikTok campaign, users are tasked with taking part in a rap challenge by submitting a video against the #KaunsiBadiBaatHai hashtag, while using the colour orange in the video. The campaign has received an overwhelmingly positive response with the hashtag getting over 970,839,700 views and many video submissions.
The song that is being used as the background for the videos is written by Delhi-based 16-year-old Abbas Ali from Slam Out Loud and composed by Aditya Shekhawat. The words of the song describe instances of violence against women and discuss negative socio-norms around gender.
Nitin Saluja, director, public policy, TikTok India, said: “At TikTok our mission is to inspire and enrich people’s lives and give them an outlet to express themselves in a way that adds value to the community. We are proud to collaborate with UN Women India for this campaign as their community partners and believe that the highly engaged community on TikTok has the potential to contribute towards a change in society and spread the message of a violence-free world.”
This article is part of our series on the international 16 Days of Activism campaign with the theme “Orange the World”.
