Wedding cards drawn by children; Impact BBDO’s entry for UN Women wins a Health Grand Prix for Good

‘Child Wedding Cards’ has also won a Gold Lion in the Health and Wellness Category.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are nearly 19 million child brides in Pakistan.

It’s a deep-rooted societal rot where legislation is the more effective method to end it, than attempting to bring behavioural change.

So, UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender quality, and advertising agency IMPACT BBDO doled out a direct mail campaign to the South Asian country’s legislators intending to make them increase the minimum age of marriage to 18 - Child Wedding Cards was the name of the campaign.

Child Wedding Cards won the Health Grand Prix for Good and a Gold Lion in the Health and Wellness category and the 2024 Cannes Lions.

They invited young girls from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds to draw wedding invitation cards. Seeing young girls do this must have shaken many out of their stupor because many bear the risk of becoming child brides.

The second stage of this campaign was to encourage legislators to take action. Through a direct mail campaign, the wedding cards were mailed to the lawmakers who then went on to hold them in their hands at the National Assembly, the seat of Pakistan’s government, asking for legislation that bring change.

The result? The Federal Islamic Court on March 7, 2023, ruled the minimum age of marriage as 18.