Hong Kong, 4 November 2009 – MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) has won this year’s Asia-Pacific Child Rights Award for producing the music video for Radiohead’s “All I Need”.
The powerful video gives insight into the realities of exploitative child labour and shows that we are all touched by it no matter where we live and that we all have a role to play in ending child exploitation and trafficking.
Radiohead, a popular and influential alternative rock band from the UK, gave MTV EXIT the right to use “All I Need” off their In Rainbows album and to produce the official video for the single as a way to reach a huge audience of young people and show them the realities of trafficking and exploitative child labour.
The music video is shown in split screen: one side depicting a day in the life of a young boy from an affluent country; the other showing the day in the life of a boy being forced to work in a sweatshop.
“The idea of fusing a social message into a creative format like a music video was something that we had wanted to experiment with for some time.” said Simon Goff, the MTV EXIT Campaign Director. “By integrating the message into this format, we could reach many more people than if we created a standard public service announcement. The reaction of the audience has been extremely positive. It has also created a debate about the issue, a social dialogue, which is incredibly important and demonstrates that the power of the video has motivated people to discuss the issue.”
“MTV EXIT has creatively and effectively found a way to reach millions of young people around the world with a powerful message about exploitative child labour,” said Madeline Eisner, UNICEF Regional Communication Advisor for the East Asia and Pacific region. “This year mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world. Yet, as the video shows, there are still children in Asia trapped in hazardous and exploitative labour, robbing them of their right to a childhood, to an education, to a future. The fight against exploitative child labour continues, and it can be won. MTV EXIT is contributing to this important effort.”
This music video is part of the MTV EXIT campaign, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking.
Simon Twiston Davies, CEO of the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) said: “Broadcast platforms of all kinds are one of the most powerful tools for educating and promoting child rights issues. On behalf of the industry, CASBAA salutes the on-going participation of broadcasters from across the Asia Pacific region in this year’s Award process.”
The winning entry was selected by a panel of jurors made up of distinguished television producers and industry representatives including: Hitoshi Furukawa of Children’s Programs Department of NHK Educational Corporation (Japan), Bella Stjerne of SVT Sveriges Television (Sweden), Aparna Sanyal of Mixed Media Productions (India), Jesse Stern of InFocus Asia (Thailand), Syahrizan Mansor of Nickelodeon (Singapore) and Virginia Lim of SPE Networks (Singapore).
“This music video was a very creative production, and by leveraging a popular mainstream band like Radiohead for broad youth appeal, it was able to deliver a message to its target market that will help stop the exploitation of children in developing countries,” ABU Acting Secretary-General, David Astley, said. “The MTV EXIT campaign on child labour is an excellent example of how a media partnership with a development agency like USAID can raise public awareness of an important social issue,” he added.
The Asia-Pacific Child Rights Award will be given to MTV EXIT on 4 November in Hong Kong during the CASBAA Convention. Created by CASBAA, ABU and UNICEF in 2001, the Award is given annually to the best television programme on a child rights issue produced in the Asia-Pacific region. This year, the Award received nearly 40 entries from 15 countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar, the Philippines and Thailand.
For more information about this year’s finalists, the Award, co-organisers and Q&A with the winner, please visit: http://www.unicef.org/eapro/media_11678.html or
http://www.childrightsaward.org.
For further information, please contact:
Rita Vannithone/ Helen Shek, CASBAA (Hong Kong), +852 2854 9913, pr@casbaa.com
Anom Sani, ABU (Kuala Lumpur), + 603 2282-3592, anom@abu.org.my
Geoffrey Keele, UNICEF (Bangkok), + 662 3569407, gkeele@unicef.org