Violence in Silence

Creative Director: Hovhannes Margaryan Designers: Edgar Mkrtchyan, Ani Amarian Copywriters: Tigran Gevorgyan, Mariam Hakobyan, Anjela Petrosyan Creative Producer: Narek Hakobyan Account Manager: Diana Stepanyan, Armenuhi Burmanyan PR Manager: Zara Petrosyan

The “Violence in silence” campaign was conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and the Council of Europe. It raised awareness about the prevention of domestic violence and the support available to victims and survivors. The campaign aimed to encourage victims, survivors, and witnesses of domestic violence not to remain silent but call for help to stop the cycle of violence, and ultimately achieve gender equality. The campaign was titled “Violence in silence” because the silence, including from those around us – the neighbors, colleagues, friends, family, and others – allows domestic violence to continue. The project is based on the fact that there are people who use different phrases to justify their silence when witnessing domestic violence, such as “it’s not my business”, “he’s her husband, he can do whatever he wants” and so on. On the International Women’s Day, a global day to celebrate women’s rights, a social experiment was conducted in Yerevan to address this issue. We installed a door on one of the busiest streets of Yerevan. The door played sounds of domestic violence. These sounds paused when someone rang the doorbell. Every 10th witness stopped to ring it. The experiment encouraged passers-by to call for help when witnessing domestic violence. The campaign launched a Facebook page and website with detailed information about domestic violence and its manifestations, the obligations of the authorities to protect the victims and prevent domestic violence, and support services available to victims and survivors, such as helplines, and support centers, shelters, etc. The official violenceinsilence.org website was developed during the implementation period of the campaign and will work forever. It contains the necessary information for victims and witnesses of domestic violence: what their rights are, how to contact the domestic violence helpline, where to seek shelter, etc. It also presents statistical data on domestic violence in Armenia, urging site visitors to take action when faced with domestic violence. This makes the website an essential tool for the victims and witnesses, and as such, will continue to operate and will periodically be updated. The result speaks for itself. The calls to the helpline tripled during the first 6 months. The campaign was very successful on social media as well, cumulating a reach of over 4.2 million in a country with only a 3 million population.