NOVEMBER | #Shameonwho

On November 5, Lebanese non-profit civil association ABAAD launched a nationwide awareness campaign on sexual violence through a video depicting a social experiment where an actress plays the role of a woman who had just been raped and is seeking help from strangers on the street across different urban areas in Lebanon. The campaign, anticipated through mass text messages referencing the Arabic version of the tagline #Shameonwho sent out a day before the video’s release, specifically seeks to “reshape society's skewed perception of victim shaming and call for severe penalties against the rapist in Lebanon” according to ABAAD’S website. The video clearly exposed victim-shaming culture within the Lebanese society, as many of the featured subjects blamed the victim instead of solely condemning the rapist. On Twitter, the campaign fueled a heated conversation about rape in Lebanon that motivated many women to share their own stories of abuse by means of raising awareness on the subject.