Pakistani teens use mannequin challenge to shine spotlight on violence against women

KARACHI: Trends come and go, but rarely do they have an impact on the viewer like a recent mannequin challenge that I stumbled across on my timeline. Created by AS-level students in Karachi, the video already viewed over 1.4 million times and shared over 36,000 times, raises awareness about violence against women and it drives the message home.

Before the age of the internet, trends took a while to trickle down from the West to the East – be it fashion trends, music trends or even pointless ones. Had Gangam Style been released thirty years ago, Psy may not have become the sensation he became thanks to Youtube.

Without Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other popular social media platforms trends like the ice bucket challenge, the bottle flip, the hot pepper challenge, the mannequin challenge and the likes would never have become trends.

The ice bucket challenge that started in 2014 created awareness about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS and managed to raise funds that led to a breakthrough in ALS research, most other trends haven’t had such an impact.

Back in October 2016 when the mannequin challenge began, people from all walks of life, politicians, statesmen, pop stars, actors, sports icons and of course the millions of people who follow such trends jumped on the bandwagon.

That’s when we stumbled upon the mannequin challenge video made by teenagers from the Foundation Public School, it was simple, it was heartfelt and it struck chord with everyone who has viewed it so far.

I caught up with these students to find out a little about them, their challenge and their story.