A campaign interrogating the Indian government’s proposed move to raise the minimum age of marriage for girls from 18 to 21.
The #EmpowermentNotAge campaign by Oxfam India was created in response to the government establishing a Task Force to determine whether the age of marriage for girls should be raised from 18 to 21. The campaign used factual evidence and scientific research to contest that such a move would be beneficial to girls and women, and offered solutions to curbing early marriage by addressing root causes — namely societal norms, poverty, and lack of girls’ education.
I worked alongside the Oxfam India Gender Justice team on the digital leg of the campaign. We aimed to engage the public by encouraging them to write to their local MPs using email & phone templates, as well as a social media toolkit.
We released 9 infographics, 2 comics and 2 videos in English and Hindi, explaining the issue, highlighting youth voices and debunking myths. We published 5 articles on various media platforms and created Twitter threads and Instagram stories for direct engagement. The campaign initiated partnerships with youth-focused feminist platforms including Vitamin Stree and Feminism In India, significantly expanding reach to young audiences.
Selected Posters
Created in collaboration with feminist illustrator Upasana Agarwal. See all using #EmpowermentNotAge on Instagram.
Social Media Engagement
Through our partnership with Feminism in India, we ran a series on Twitter and Instagram explaining the issue in five simple points, then mapped the audience’s views before and after. Both series showed a sharp change in people’s opinions after going through the points.
