Monaco has received national recognition in France for a campaign tackling one of the quietest and most misunderstood forms of abuse: coercive control.
The Committee for the Promotion and Protection of Women’s Rights has won two prizes at the 2026 Cas d’OR Grandes Causes awards for its animated campaign on coercive control, a subject that often hides in plain sight.
The campaign received the Special Jury Prize across all categories, as well as the award in the category dedicated to combating violence. It is the first time Monaco has been recognised at the awards, which celebrate communications campaigns and digital initiatives serving public interest causes.
The video, which has been viewed more than 900,000 times on Instagram, focuses on the invisible mechanisms of control that can exist within abusive relationships. Not every form of violence begins with a bruise. Sometimes it begins with isolation, surveillance, humiliation, financial control, or the slow dismantling of someone’s confidence until they no longer recognise their own voice.
That is what makes the campaign important. It gives language to something many women experience long before anyone else can see it.
In a place like Monaco, where life is often viewed through the polished glass of privilege, campaigns like this matter even more. Abuse does not belong to one postcode, one income bracket, or one kind of family. It can exist behind beautiful doors, inside respectable relationships, and in lives that appear perfectly composed from the outside.
The campaign’s success on social media also shows how public awareness is changing. Serious messages no longer need to sit quietly in government leaflets or formal reports. They can travel through phones, stories, feeds and conversations, reaching people who may never have searched for help, but may recognise themselves in a single frame.
An English-language version of the campaign was also produced, helping the message reach beyond Monaco’s French-speaking audience.
The double award is a meaningful moment for the Principality’s work on women’s rights. It shows that prevention is not only about laws and official structures, but also about recognition. Before someone can ask for help, they often need to understand that what is happening to them has a name.
Coercive control is subtle by design. It does not always announce itself dramatically. It can arrive as concern, jealousy, protection, or love dressed badly. A campaign that exposes it clearly, simply and publicly is not just communications work. It is protection work.
For Monaco, this recognition is more than a prize. It is a reminder that awareness can be a form of rescue, and that sometimes the most powerful thing a public campaign can do is tell someone: you are not imagining it.
Where to Watch the Campaign
The official animated film behind the campaign is titled Boîte Noire, created as part of Monaco’s awareness campaign “L’enfermer ce n’est pas l’aimer”.
The short film explores coercive control through the image of a black box, showing how emotional abuse can gradually isolate and trap a victim long before violence becomes visible. It was broadcast on Monaco Info and shared across the Committee for Women’s Rights’ official platforms and social media.
The campaign video can be watched on the Comité Droits des Femmes Monaco website at dfm.mc, and is also available on YouTube by searching: Boîte Noire Monaco L’enfermer ce n’est pas l’aimer.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse or coercive control in Monaco, call the police on 17 or 112 in an emergency, or contact AVIP Monaco on +377 93 25 00 07 for victim support.
In France, call 3919 for domestic violence support, 17 or 112 in an emergency, or text 114 if you cannot speak safely.
