When you see the title of a country song called “The heart cries for help”, you immediately think of those romantic ballads that make all Brazil want to have a love to sing together, right?
Not this time. To alert the population about violence against women, the Ministry of Human Rights and the Secretariat of Women sponsored the launch of a song by Naiara Azevedo, one of the greatest singers of the so-called “sofrência/suffering”, which quickly became a success.
When listening to it at first, people thought it was a passionate song. But, on the International Day to End Violence against Women, the clip was shown on various digital and TV channels, with images that showed the ambiguous quality of the verses, addressing situations of psychological abuse.
Influencers also helped to spread the music and the clip of the Brazilian Country Music star, promoting the hashtag #vctemvoz, as a way to encourage the reporting of gender crimes.
The campaign dialogs directly with the reality of Brazil: in 2017, more than 12 women were killed per day, while in the following year, during the first semester alone, about 63 thousand cases of domestic violence were reported.
The result was bigger than we could expect: 55 million people impacted, record of Brazilian government engagement on Twitter, Lion in Cannes, bronze at the Effie Awards, inspiration for a question at ENEM 2019 (Brazil’s High School Standardized Exam) and, most importantly,: a 101% increase in formal complaints against abuse.