'Selfie With Daughter’ Campaign Goes Viral

Elise Solé
Updated
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Parents have been tweeting photos of their daughters in support of a campaign called #SelfieWithDaughter by India’s Prime Minister to highlight the importance of girls in society. (Photo: Twitter/Chaudhry Shankar)

Heartwarming parent-daughter selfies have gone viral on Twitter, thanks to a social media campaign called #SelfieWithDaughter launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an effort to promote gender equality.

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During his Sunday radio address, Modi asked parents to tweet photos of themselves with their daughters to highlight the importance of girls and women. The campaign is called “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” and is roughly translated to “Save Daughters, Educate Daughters.” Modi credits the online hit to a local politician in the small Indian village of Haryana. According to a story published in the New York Times, baby boys are valued in Indian society, resulting in nearly 2,000 girls being killed at birth. And while laws exist to prevent expecting couples from using prenatal tests to learn the sex of their unborn baby, per the Wall Street Journal, many parents hold out hope for a son.

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As of Tuesday, the hashtag “SelfieWithDaughter” was used 222K times. Even fashion designer Kenneth Cole participated, sharing a photo of his two daughters with the hashtag #DaughterSandwich.

On Monday, Modi expressed his excitement, tweeting, “Amazed by the fantastic response to SelfieWithDaughter. It’s remarkable how people across the world have chipped in.”

Here are some of the sweetest snaps from the viral campaign.

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