This article references rape and sexual assault.
On Tuesday, ahead of the launch of ALL IN: Global Leaders for Ending Gender-Based Violence, I found myself sitting alongside Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, in a brightly lit room at the Design Museum in Kensington, London.
To Tarana’s left sat Sima Samar, former Minister for Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan, who was joined by Mabel van Oranje, the founder of Girls Not Brides, and Victor Madrigal-Borloz, a former UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Later that evening, Tarana, Sima, Mabel, and Victor would speak to a packed auditorium about the need for All In, a new initiative dedicated to accelerating political action and sustained investment in preventing violence against women and girls. But before they did, they shared their thoughts with a small group of journalists, including yours truly, at an exclusive media roundtable.
Henry J. Kamara
As one of only four journalists in the room, it felt surreal to hear directly from Tarana, Sima, Mabel, and Victor about their strategies for dealing with the global crisis of violence against women and girls. As a survivor of sexual violence, it felt particularly moving to hear Tarana Burke reflect on her own experiences.
“I am a survivor, and as a survivor of sexual violence, my whole life – because I became a survivor at seven – something that always comes up for me is this has to mean something,” she began. “Before I was fighting against it, I was trying to understand and answer that question, right? This has to mean something. And when I started doing this work, it began to help answer that question.”
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Tarana continued, “This thing that happened to me had to happen for a reason. I have to make it mean something. And what I know as a person who does this work is that so many of us who have survived survive in the same places where we were harmed, and we survive in the places where we were harmed, watching nothing change.”
Addressing her decision to join the All In initiative, she said, “A part of what we are doing here is using our privilege, using our influence to advance and help people to understand that there’s so much work happening around the world.