Rape Stigma Campaign Spreading Throughout Africa

Courtesy of Harper Hill Global

What started as an rape anti-stigmatization campaign by Harper Hill Global in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is being embraced by other African women’s and religious groups and is starting to percolate throughout the continent.

Last year Harper Hill’s Arise From Stigma commissioned a short animated video – A Plea To My Father – from Chocolate Moose Media to confront stigmatization in the DRC, although distribution has now spread to Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and the Central African Republic.

First released in August 2017 in 11 language versions, the video has already won two international awards and was used in February by The Northern Nigeria United Methodist Women’s Convention to perform a live dramatization of stigma in front of 2,000 people.

A new blog piece on Harper Hill’s Website reveals how the anti-stigmatization movement is spreading into northern Nigeria. Organization founder Neelley Hicks is now preparing a communications project – primarily using WhatsApp on cellphones – that will spread Arise content through much of sub-Saharan Africa.