Press Coverage for Oscar Winning Documentary Highlighting Acid Attacks

A couple of days before the Academy Awards the founder of Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI), Dr John Morrison OBE, got in touch with Pimp My Cause and asked for our help in getting publicity. They knew that they had a great opportunity, but didn't know how to take advantage of the fact that a the short documentary film Saving Face, about the plight of two young women in Pakistan who have been attacked with acid, was up for Best Short Documentary Film.

Saving Face follows the plight of two young women in Pakistan who have had their faces and lives destroyed – they had acid thrown at them with the deliberate intention to wound and stigmatise. ASTI supports a network of partners who provide surgical treatment and rehabilitation to around 1000 survivors every year and they supported co-directors Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Daniel Junge in their quest to tell the story of acid attack survivors, Zakia and Rukhsan.

ASTI has been working for over a decade to help survivors of acid attacks. It established the organisation featured in the film – the Acid Survivors Foundation in Pakistan and supports four other similar organisations in Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda and Cambodia. It is the only organisation anywhere in the world whose sole mission is to eliminate acid attacks.

After John updated us on their activities we were very motivated to help, but it was difficult to find PR experts who could step in and help with such a short time frame. On the Monday morning after the Oscars we woke up to hear the news that Saving Face had won Best Short Documentary. And although we are not PR experts ourselves we helped John create a press release and quickly sent it out to all of the journalists we thought might be interested.

Within a few days of sending out the press release there was interest from Grazia magazine and a powerful two page spread was published in last week's Grazia (April 2, 2012 issue) on page 48.

Acid violence is a largely unreported crime that happens all over the world, is not characterised by creed, continent or culture but is mainly perpetrated against young women and girls. ASTI calculates that there are at least 1,500 reported attacks on innocent victims every year – but many more go unreported.

“The women who decided to be a part of the documentary did so because they wanted to make their voices heard and wanted to bring attention to this form of assault,” Chinoy said in an interview conducted before she won the Oscar. “The main reason that they are in Saving Face is to make their stories heard and have an impact.” Many victims are women attacked by their husbands, and others assaulted for turning down a proposal of marriage. One girl in the documentary describes how she was burned after rejecting the advances of her teacher. She was 13 at the time.

"We have commissioned research into this crime, sent teams of volunteers to help survivors, and brought this crime to the attention of the UN and other international human rights agencies," explains John Morrison, founder of ASTI, "and for those inspired by Saving Face, ASTI has designed a programme with the film makers to raise awareness following the film’s release."

Saving Face premiered in the UK at the Human Rights Film Festival on 28th and 29th March 2012 and will be showing on channel 4 in early Aprill.