Political Protest

Issues in society I am emotive towards:

- Child slavery

- Child trafficking 

- Child soldiering 

- Debts 

- Racism

- Sex trade

- Terrorism

- Sexism

- Ageism 

- Offensive towards religions

- The right to education 

- Poverty

- The tax system

- Child neglect

- Domestic violence

- Drug exploitation 

- Bullying

- Women's rights

Turning these issues into protests:

- Marches

- Montage images

- Short scenes

- Banners 

- Posters (e.g of statistics, real life imagery)

- Emotive language and actions

What did we choose and why?

My group decided to focus on the issue of 'Child Soldiering' which umbrellas other issues such as drug exploitation, death, child neglect, exploitation to sex, weapons, slavery and human rights. All of which are important social issues in which happen countries as close as the same continent we live in. We found when brainstorming ideas that this social issue in particularly is shadowed by other issues. Choosing this subject matter was relevant as it involves children younger than us and truly captures the neglect in which they are going through, however also the neglect in our day to day lives remembering this issue still goes on. Charities and organisations are becoming fewer whom deal with this issue, therefore we decided to seize to the opportunity of making this issue apparent and relevant to an audience that can consider the brutality of it (particularly when thinking about age). 

We began to look at imagery as part of our research to reassure our selves we wanted to do this topic, Coming across this heartbreaking image had hit home for me in particular as it made me realise the harsh brutality of what happens within our society. During our further research we discovered more about the themes covering this topic such as neglect, injuries, and sex exploitation, As we did more research, more ideas about how we could convey this issue as affectively and realistically as possible. 

    

What do we want to get across to the audience?

- Child neglect

- Young ages of children

- Sex exploitation

- Weapon exploitation

- Fear

- Bodily harm

What moments can we repeat?

Our devised scene includes three young child soldiers of the ages six, seven and eight. The youngest child has been newly found and wrongly used as a child soldier, the audience notice the severity of fear within each boy. The general soldier himself is only eighteen however has been brainwashed into the thought process of believing child soldiering is right. This conveys the idea of each individual soldier being so young. The two females within the group are being sex slaves for the soldiers showing how they are exploited to the sex trade. The females are being wrongly treated as they are tied to posts with tattered clothing on. We decided to devise our scene on top of a hill behind the canteen to convey the idea of being a dismissed social issue and how it would capture the attention from inside the canteen. We decided to repeat moments such as the training of the child soldiers and the females being tied to the posts having guns aimed at them. To capture the audiences attention we would begin our piece by having the females run through the canteen screaming for help which would bring the attention onto the hill behind the canteen where the training of child soldiers is happening. 

Props and costume:

Boys:

- Black lines of paint on face

- Water pistols X3

- Belt

- Bandanna's

- All black clothing

- Red food dye/ink

- Placards with ages and names on

- Rope

- Posters of child soldiers

Girls:

- Ripped white tshirt

- Fake blood

- Bed sheet

- Sack/blindfold X2

- Placards of age and 'Sex slave #1'