It was yet another online discussion blaming a rape victim for provoking her attacker that prompted Ukrainian activist Anastasiya Melnychenko’s campaign to shatter taboos in her homeland and neighbouring Russia.
In response Melnychenko typed out an unflinching account of the string of sexual assaults she has suffered throughout her life then posted it on Facebook with the hashtag #IAmNotAfraidToSpeak, repeated in Ukrainian and Russian.
Her courageous move this month opened the floodgates and soon hundreds of women in Ukraine and Russia started to share their own personal stories of sexual violence, a subject that is more often hushed up or ignored.
For many …read more
Source: Pakistan Today
