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If you’ve been on social media for the past couple of days, you might have come across the trend of Kenyan women sharing black and white photos. The hashtag has left many men baffled as they seek to uncover the significance of the images. Some women are also not too sure about the photos assuming that it's just part of an internet challenge. While the general theme is related to women empowerment, the original meaning has not been very obvious.
What is it about?
Recently, women in Turkey sought to raise awareness on femicides after a college student was brutally murdered. Pinar Gültekin was reported missing on July 16 after she could not be reached on phone. Fearing for her life, her mother reported the matter to the police and she was found dead in a forest five days later. Her body was stuffed inside a barrel. A 2016 report by the European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies showed that most women in Turley were killed for wanting to live by their own decisions
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“Turkish people wake up every day to see a black and white photo of a woman who has been murdered on their Instagram feed, on their newspaper and TV screens. The black and white photo challenge started as a way for women to raise their voice. To stand in solidarity with the women we have lost. To show that one day, it could be their picture that is plastered across news outlets with a black and white filter on top,” a Twitter user from Turkey wrote.
just thought all of you posting these "black and white" challenges should see how tone deaf they actually are xx pic.twitter.com/WdQzQqMlza
— ????? ???????? (@imaann_patel) July 28, 2020
On Instagram alone, over 6 million photos have been uploaded with the hashtag. Over the years, the hashtag has been used to ‘spread positivity’ .In 2016, the black and white photos with with the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted were meant to spread a cancer awareness message.
