JWT opens law school for victims of child prostitution in India, because “a normal ad campaign won’t cut it”

Ad agency J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam and the Free a Girl Movement have opened the School for Justice, an educational institution for girls in India aiming to teach law to victims of child prostitution. After being approached to create a campaign to raise awareness about child prostitution for movement, the agency decided to set up the school following its research into the cause.

“When we found out that hardly any of the criminals responsible for these crimes are punished – in 2015 there were 1.2 million girls in forced prostitution vs. 55 legal cases that led to convictions – we quickly realised that a ‘normal’ ad campaign wasn’t going to cut it,” says Bas Korsten, executive creative director at J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam. The educational programme aims to teach the victims law, “thus empowering them to prosecute the criminals who once owned them,” Bas says. “The School for Justice is a very real solution to a problem – as well as a communication idea to raise awareness.”

The school opens on 6 April 2017, launched with an empowering campaign and with a class of 19 students. It will be open to girls from all school levels to offer the support, tuition and mentoring they need to reach university level law courses. Long-term, the agency hopes the pupils will “challenge India’s legal system from within”. India has the most underage sex workers in the world with an estimated 1.2 million children working in brothels against their will.