WINNERS

Since the introduction of ultrasound imaging in early 90s, boy preference in Armenia has resulted in over 40,000 sex-selective abortions. At this rate, this number will reach 96.000 by 2060. Currently, Armenia has the 5th highest rate of sex-selective abortions in the world. For a country with less than 3 million population, these are alarming numbers. Boy preference is so strong in Armenia that some superstitious families name their daughters “Bavakan” (literally “Enough”) to prevent the birth of another girl. Hence the title of the campaign: “Bavakane,” a wordplay that means “It is enough.”
This topic is hardly ever discussed. So, we set out to kick start a public discourse via an awareness raising campaign. We made a provocative PSA in which we glorify all the fields that Armenia is a leader in -- sports, IT, science, etc., -- including sex-selective abortions.
However, as the main tool to convey the message, we chose the Mother Armenia statue. It is the highest statue in the country, a female personification of Armenia and a symbol of women’s role in our society; which is rather ironic given the appalling boy preference.
On the International Day of the Girl Child we illuminated the statue in red and projected Armenia’s statistics on sex-selective abortions on the pedestal. The Minister of Health went live of Facebook in front of the statue to express his support for the campaign. It quickly went viral; soon celebrities and politicians joined the campaign, including the Prime Minister.
Eventually, the topic became an important part of the Armenian Parliament’s agenda. Moreover, the Government is currently developing a comprehensive bill to put a total ban on sex-selective abortions.
But the most important result of the campaign is the letter we received a few months later. The letter was from a lady who had decided to abort her daughter (who would be 4th in a row), but after seeing our campaign she changed her mind, and in May, 2020, we welcomed little Luiza to our world.