Ester Expósito and the Ministry of Equality join forces this 25 November

‘The Treasure Hunt’ is a devastating account by Argentine writer Hernan Casciari about vicarious violence.

This 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Ministry of Equality and Ogilvy have decided to launch a powerful short film starring Ester Expósito. The aim of this six-minute piece, based on a story of the same name by Hernán Casciari, is to show one of the most brutal realities of gender-based violence.

‘La Búsqueda del Tesoro’ begins with the apparent sweetness of a romantic request. A couple, a daughter, an intimate gesture. What seems like an everyday moment is soon revealed to be a carefully designed trap. What seems like an everyday moment is soon revealed to be a carefully designed trap.

The author articulates a story that is disarming: a father who uses his daughter Amelie to hurt his partner, Inés. A sequence that, without resorting to artifice or excessive dramatisation, accurately shows how vicarious violence works: the exploitation of minors as a weapon of control, punishment and emotional blackmail.

And although the short film is fictional, it is based on a reality that is happening. According to figures from the Government Delegation against Gender Violence, between 2013 and July 2025, 65 minors have been murdered in contexts of gender-based violence. Of these, 38 were direct victims of vicarious violence, murdered by their own fathers or by their mothers’ partners/ex-partners as an extreme expression of cruelty and domination. Seventy-one per cent of cases of vicarious violence recorded in 2021 occurred during break-ups, that critical moment that aggressors turn into an opportunity to redouble their control and harm.

The campaign aims to ensure that vicarious violence ceases to be a technical term and becomes a recognised, named and combated problem. Its objective is to raise awareness of one of the most extreme forms of gender-based violence, alert people to its signs and reinforce confidence in existing resources, such as 016, which is available to any woman who needs support, information or urgent help.