#WHYIDIDNTREPORT
Sex assault survivors break their silence with viral hashtag
Because I was 7. He was my Uncle. Told my mom & grandma. They did nothing. Happened again. I told. They did nothing. No one did anything about it. I was scared. Found out he did it to others too.’’ Rachel Walters @bluelioness77
When the #MeToo movement erupted on social media last year, people who had been sexually harassed, abused or assaulted went public with their stories.
Now a new hashtag has surfaced as if in answer to the question: Why didn’t you say something sooner? It began when Christine Blasey Ford, 51, came forward as the writer of a letter in which she accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of pinning her on a bed, groping her and covering her mouth to keep her from screaming when they were teenagers. On Friday, Trump questioned her credibility, saying that if the attack “was as bad as she says,” she would have reported it to the authorities when it happened more than 30 years ago.
Since Friday, sSurvivors of abuse rallied around the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport, to highlight the difficulties, fear, anger and shame that so often surround sexual harassment and assault. Here is a selection of the horrific experience of survivors who tweeted using the hashtag: