JWT India's #MyDaughterWill espouses women's right to perform last rites

The campaign shares personal stories of subtle discrimination at a moment when we are all at our weakest – after the death of a parent -- and advocates for equality

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | February 24, 2017

Click on the Image to watch the Video.

Women are denied a lot of things in India and one of them is the right to perform the last rites of a deceased family member. According to tradition, only male members of the family are allowed the right because it is believed one will find peace in the afterlife only if the rituals are performed by male members. So, it often happens that daughters who may have dedicated an entire lifetime caring for their parents have to make way for a distant cousin who came only during summer vacations.

Taking up the cause to allow women to perform last rites, JWT, in association with New-Delhi based NGO Haiyya, has come up with a campaign, #MyDaughterWill. The two minutes and 53 seconds long film is a montage of women recounting incidents when they were denied the right to light a family member's funeral pyre. The film, while highlighting the religious context behind the practice, also urges a review of such long held, archaic believes.

Tista Sen

“This year the women folk and a few good men of JWT got together to work on ideas that bring about change for society, gender, women issues and LGBT rights. #MyDaughterWill is one such initiative that we are extremely proud of. These are not ideas that usher in change overnight but seep into your thinking and conversation and one day herald change,” said, Tista Sen, National Creative Director, JWT India.

The idea behind the campaign came from personal experiences which found an echo with similar instances of subtle discrimination against women experienced by so many others.

Commenting on the challenges they faced while executing the campaign, Nandita Chalam, Sr VP and Executive Creative Director, JWT India, said, “Yes, plenty of challenges. A lot of people with very orthodox views were not willing to speak on camera. And even those with very regressive views when speaking off camera, suddenly turned very modern in their thinking the moment the cameras started rolling! In some traditional households, the women could not speak freely because the men hovered around, refusing to let the women speak alone to us.”

But this is just another campaign advocating equal rights for women in a long line of such campaigns. So was there a fear of their voice getting drowned?

“There are plenty of communication shouting stridently on gender equality, but we feel that this campaign is very different because it shares personal stories of subtle discrimination at a moment when we are all at our weakest – after the death of a parent. It has touched an emotional chord with both parents and daughters, which is the reason why it went viral in a short time after the launch,” said Chalam.

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/bmi/media/post_attachments/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MyDaughterWill.jpg

Credits:

Agency: JWT India

Creative Team: Senthil Kumar, Tista Sen, Nandita Chalam, Vijay Solanki, Shyam Nair

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com