Bnei Brak - Torn poster reveals chilling message about violence against women

An Israeli ad agency has found an original way to promote public awareness of violence against women in Israel.

In a campaign coinciding with the United Nations' International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, marked on November 25, Israeli advertising firm Twisted tackled the issue of excluding women from the public sphere, Ice.co.il reported.

In the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, images of women on billboards are deemed immodest, especially if their knees, elbows and hair are uncovered. This is also true in Jerusalem, where advertisers refused to run ads on buses that picture women, out of fear the ads would be vandalized.

Instead of fearing vandalism in Bnei Brak, Twisted used it in its favor, to help it get the message across: They put up a double-layered poster featuring a woman's face, and her hair and shoulders uncovered, knowing it would get vandalized, Ice reported.

Less than 24 hours after the poster went up, just as Twisted had predicted, the face of the woman in the poster was ripped off, the report said, revealing a message that read, "International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 25.11.03."

A similar campaign was used in Tunisia, where the agency Memac Ogilvy used a poster of the ousted President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali in an attempt to encourage people to vote.