Champion’s home run

Sex assault survivor’s new cause

HOBART’S Grace Tame, who became the face of the #Let HerSpeak campaign last year, has embraced a new project for charity.

This Sunday, Grace and her cousin Eloise Warren each aim to run 437 minutes (7 hours and 17 minutes), representing one minute for every indigenous Australian death in custody since 1991.

Money raised will be donated to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Sisters Inside, and The NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In 2019, Ms Tame became the first woman in Tasmania to win the right to self identify as a sexual assault survivor in the media. Since then, the champion runner has won the Santa Monica Better World halfmarathon in March this year.

Ms Tame, who divides her time between Hobart and Los Angeles, said she was motivated by the Black Lives Matter movement to do more to support human rights initiatives.

“My friends in Santa Barbara

hosted a run for 8 hours and 46 minutes in memory of George Floyd. I wanted to do something similar in Australia, but with a more local focus.

“I know I will never be able to fully comprehend the immeasurable pain of racial discrimination,” said Ms Tame.

“However, as a united collective we can always act in support of others among us. To make change, we have to get uncomfortable.”

Ms Tame said in addition to supporting the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, she was particularly drawn to the Sisters Inside charity, after learning that a significant majority of women in Australian prison had experienced sexual abuse.

“We know that about 89 per cent of women who are criminalised in prison have been sexually abused or raped in their lives,” said Debbie Kilroy, CEO of Sisters Inside.

“In 1994, when we established Sisters Inside, we talked to all the women in prison, and we asked them what services they needed most.

“The high majority said sexual assault counselling. When these girls and women are sexually abused, they are often gagged and silenced. They don’t have any support, so they turn to illegal drugs to self medicate. Pretty quickly, life can spiral to homelessness, then further violation on the street, then being arrested. It’s a pipeline.”

Sisters Inside recently raised more than $1 million to help support Aboriginal women at risk of incarceration in Western Australia, where individuals can be jailed if they fail to pay off petty fines in under 28 days.

So far, 396 Aboriginal women have been supported to stay out of jail, and connected with their children and families.

Ms Kilroy said jail could have devastating outcomes for Aboriginal women. “This year alone, two [of the three Aboriginal deaths in custody] were women” said Ms Kilroy.

There have been nine Aboriginal deaths in custody in Tasmania since 1991.