UN Women’s Public Service Announcement promoting ‘Active Bystander’ goes interactive

Author: Alejandro Hita

Watch it now and decide who is going to be an active bystander!

Bangkok, Thailand – The Public Service Announcement (PSA) Active Bystander is produced with the objective to encourage people to take action on ending violence against women and girls. The piece follows a positive bystander approach that aspires to increase individual intervention in situations of harassment in public spaces.

An interactive version of the PSA has been developed by UN Women, for desktop computer and is user-friendly for other mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

The Active Bystander video counts with the participation of one of the most famous Muaythai boxers, Buakaw Banchamek. It has been produced in Thailand by UN Women with the support of the Danish Government and through an institutional service contract with a private sector advertising company.

In support of the HeForShe movement and the UNiTE Campaign, Active Bystander was screened before each film during the 2015 Bangkok International Film Festival on Ending Violence against Women and Girls (EVAWGFilmFest), in order to reinforce the prevention and awareness-raising component of the event. The video was largely promoted throughout the EVAWGFilmFest, the UN Women ROAP website and social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. The Active Bystander reached more than 6,500,000 people on social media as of March 2018, and it also won the 2017 Communications X-Change Award from the Global Women’s Institute.