48 Sexual abuse victim advocates

Linor Abargil is an Israeli lawyer, actress, model and beauty queen who won the Miss World beauty pageant in 1998, shortly after being raped. Since then, she has become a global advocate in the fight against sexual violence. She was crowned by her predecessor Miss World 1997, Diana Hayden.

Grace Akallo is a Ugandan woman who was abducted in 1996 to be used as a child soldier in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel military group led by Joseph Kony. At the time of her abduction, Akallo was 15 years old and attending St. Mary's College, a Catholic boarding school in Aboke, Uganda. She remained in the LRA for seven months before escaping. After escaping the army, Akallo returned to St. Mary's College to finish her high school education. She began her college education at the Uganda Christian University, but finished her undergraduate degree at Gordon College after receiving a scholarship. Akallo then went on to receive her master's degree from Clark University/ Upon her escape from the LRA, Akallo began working as an advocate for peace and for the rights of African women and children. She has been using both her experiences as a child soldier and the information she has gained in her higher education to advocate against violence and the use of child soldiers, as well as to help counsel other escaped child soldiers like herself.

Myra Ellen "Tori" Amos is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of 11 when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.

Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, television personality, author, and activist. She is best known for her numerous appearances in Playboy magazine and for her work on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch (1992–1997), and V.I.P. (1998–2002).

Clémentine Autain is a French politician and feminist. Autain is co-editor of the monthly publication Regards with Roger Martelli, and is co-secretary of the Fondation Copernic.

Lamiya Haji Bashar is a Yazidi human rights activist. She was awarded the Sakharov Prize jointly with Nadia Murad in 2016.

Samira Bellil was a French feminist activist and a campaigner for the rights of girls and women.

Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer and co-founder of the law-reform group Justice for Women, which since 1991 has helped women who have been prosecuted for killing violent male partners.

Eugenia Bonetti is a nun who works to rescue girls from being trafficked in Italy and help women leave the country's prostitution industry.

Aisha Halilu Buhari is the First Lady of Nigeria and wife of the current President Muhammadu Buhari, who assumed office on 29 May, 2015 after defeating the then-incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Aisha Buhari is a cosmetologist, beauty therapist and an author.

Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson is an American broadcast journalist, author, television personality, violinist, Miss America winner, and female empowerment advocate. Carlson appeared as the host of numerous television programs, most notably on the Saturday edition of The Early Show on CBS News from 2002 to 2005, Fox News’ morning show Fox & Friends from 2005 to 2013 and The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson on Fox News from 2013 to 2016.

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American musician. He was the frontman of the rock band Nirvana, serving as the band's guitarist, lead vocalist, and primary songwriter. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona, Cobain's compositions widened the thematic conventions of mainstream rock music. He was often heralded as a spokesman of Generation X and is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in the history of alternative rock.

Catherine Daisy Coleman was an American sexual assault victim advocate who was the subject of the 2016 documentary film Audrie & Daisy, for which she received a Cinema Eye Honor. Coleman co-founded the non-profit organization SafeBAE, which was aimed at preventing sexual assault in schools. She died by suicide at the age of 23.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is a member of the British royal family. She is the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne. A second marriage for both of them, they married on 9 April 2005. Despite being entitled to be known as Princess of Wales, she uses the title Duchess of Cornwall, her husband's secondary designation. In Scotland, she is known as the Duchess of Rothesay.

Barry Francis Crimmins was an American stand-up comedian, political satirist, activist, author, Air America Radio writer and correspondent, and comedy club owner.

Viola Davis is an American actress and producer. The recipient of an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, she is the first African-American and youngest actor to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. In 2017 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2020, The New York Times ranked Davis ninth on its list of "The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century".

Stephen Donaldson, born Robert Anthony Martin Jr and also known by the pseudonym Donny the Punk, was an American bisexual rights activist, and political activist. He is best known for his pioneering activism in LGBT rights and prison reform, and for his writing about punk rock and subculture.

Natasha Falle is a Canadian professor at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who was forcibly prostituted from the ages of 15 to 27 and now opposes prostitution in Canada. Falle grew up in a middle-class home and, when her parents divorced, her new single-parent home became unsafe, and Falle ran away from home. At the age of 15, Falle became involved in the sex industry in Calgary, Alberta.

Michael Francis "Mick" Foley is an American actor, author, comedian, retired professional wrestler, and color commentator. He is currently signed to WWE.

Martha 'Marty' Goddard was an American victims' advocate who was instrumental in developing the rape kit, used to methodically collect forensic evidence from victims of rape.

Mariska Magdolna Hargitay is an American actress, director and philanthropist. The daughter of bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay and actress Jayne Mansfield, Hargitay made her film debut in the 1985 horror comedy film Ghoulies and her major television debut in the 1986 adventure drama series Downtown. She appeared in numerous roles in film and on television throughout the late 1980s and 1990s before having her breakthrough for starring as Olivia Benson on the NBC drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–present), for which she has received several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Outside of acting, Hargitay founded the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization that provides support to people who have been sexually abused.

Salma Hayek Pinault is a Mexican and American film actress and producer. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991, Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West, and Dogma.

Harish Iyer, also known as "Aham", hiyer and "Harrish Iyer" is an Indian equal rights activist. Iyer engages in advocacy for a number of causes, including promoting the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, children, women, animals, and survivors of child sexual abuse.

Andrew Kooman is an author and playwright from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

Lester Lawrence Lessig III is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.

Mukhtaran Bibi, now known as Mukhtār Mā'ī, is a Pakistani human rights activist from the village of Meerwala, located in the rural tehsil of Jatoi in the Muzaffargarh District of Punjab, Pakistan. In June 2002, Mā'ī was the victim of a gang-rape sanctioned by a tribal council of the local Mastoi Baloch clan, as a form of 'honour revenge'; the council ruling was a result of a dispute between the wealthier Mastoi Baloch and Mā'ī's Tatla clan.

Alyssa Jayne Milano is an American actress, producer, singer, author, and activist. She is best known for her roles as Samantha Micelli in Who's the Boss?, Jennifer Mancini in Melrose Place, Phoebe Halliwell in Charmed, Billie Cunningham in My Name Is Earl, Savannah "Savi" Davis in Mistresses, Renata Murphy in Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later, and Coralee Armstrong in Insatiable. As a political activist, she is best known for her role in the Me Too movement in October 2017.

Chanel Miller is an American writer and artist based in San Francisco, California and New York City. She was known anonymously after she was sexually assaulted on the campus of Stanford University in 2015 by Brock Allen Turner. The following year, her victim impact statement at his sentencing hearing went viral after it was published online by BuzzFeed, being read 11 million times within four days. Miller was referred to as "Emily Doe" in court documents and media reports until September 2019, when she relinquished her anonymity and released her memoir Know My Name. The book won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiographies and was named in several national book lists of the year. She is credited with sparking national discussion in the United States about the treatment of sexual assault cases and victims by college campuses and court systems. She is also a public speaker.

Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels.

Carey Hannah Mulligan is an English actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and a Critics' Choice Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Tony Award.

Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months.

Amanda N. Nguyen is a social entrepreneur, civil rights activist, and the CEO and founder of Rise, a non-governmental civil rights organization. She was involved in proposing and drafting the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, the 21st bill in modern U.S. history to pass unanimously through Congress. Nguyen has also been credited with kickstarting the movement to stop violence against Asian Americans after her video calling for media coverage went viral on February 5, 2021. Nguyen received the 24th Annual Heinz Award in Public Policy, Time 100 Next, Forbes 30 Under 30, and received the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award.

Benjamin Nolot is an American filmmaker and the CEO and founder of Exodus Cry, a Christian social activist group focused on the issue of human trafficking and an IHOP ministry based in Sacramento, California.

Benjamin Perrin is an associate professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Rape Crisis Scotland is a charity which provides a national rape crisis helpline and email support for anyone affected by sexual violence, no matter when or how it happened. Contact with centres typically takes place via a variety of methods, predominantly by phone and text.The Rape Crisis Movement began in the 1970s and there are also Rape Crisis centres in England and Wales. The presence of Rape Crisis Centres empowers women to speak out about their experiences of sexual violence.

Christina Ricci is an American actress. She is known for playing unconventional characters with a dark edge. Ricci is the recipient of several accolades, including a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Satellite Award for Best Actress, as well as Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, and Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Angela Rose is an American activist known for publicizing her story of being kidnapped and sexually assaulted by Robert Koppa at age 17 in 1996 in Wauconda, Illinois. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit PAVE: Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment.

Gita Sahgal born 1956/1957 (age 64–65) in Bombay, India, is a writer and journalist on issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism, a documentary films director, and a women's rights and human rights activist.

Jill Saward, also known by her married name Jill Drake was an English campaigner on issues relating to sexual violence.

Gopi Shankar Madurai is an Indian equal rights and Indigenous rights activist. Shankar was one of the youngest, and the first openly intersex and genderqueer, candidates to contest in 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election. Shankar is also the founder of Srishti Madurai Student Volunteer Collective. Shankar’s work inspired the Madras High Court to direct the Government of Tamil Nadu to order a ban on forced sex-selective surgeries on intersex infants. In December 2017 Shankar was elected to the Executive board of ILGA Asia. In August 2020 the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment appointed Shankar as the South Regional representative in the National Council for Transgender Persons.

Elizabeth Ann Gilmour is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She first gained national attention at the age of 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, held Smart captive for nine months until she was rescued by police officers on a street in Sandy, Utah.

Andrea Lee Smith is an American academic, feminist, and activist against violence. Smith's work focuses on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women. Formerly an assistant professor of American Culture and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Smith currently serves as a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside.

Emma Sulkowicz is an American performance artist and anti-rape activist who first received media attention for the performance artwork Mattress Performance (2014–2015). The artwork consisted of Sulkowicz carrying a mattress wherever she went on campus during her final year at Columbia University. Sulkowicz said the piece would end when the student who she alleged had raped her in her dorm room in 2012 was expelled or otherwise left the university. The work was a protest against campus sexual assault and the university's handling of the sexual assault case, in which it had cleared the accused of responsibility.

Dr Jessica Eaton Taylor is a British forensic psychology graduate and author. She was a Senior Lecturer in Forensic and Criminological Psychology at the University of Derby.

Gabrielle Monique Union is an American actress, voice artist, activist, and author. She began her career in the 1990s, appearing on television sitcoms, before landing supporting roles in teenage comedy films She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). Her breakthrough role was in the 2000 film Bring It On.

Kerry Marisa Washington is an American actress, producer, and director. She gained wide public recognition for starring as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series Scandal (2012–2018). For her role, she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and once for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. Her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film, Confirmation (2016), earned her a nomination for both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. And for her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020) she was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Mark Alan Williams-Thomas is an English investigative journalist and former police officer. He is best known for exposing Jimmy Savile as a paedophile in The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, a television documentary he presented and as the presenter and investigator of The Investigator: A British Crime Story in the ITV and Netflix crime series.

Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization, is a United States-based global Yazidi nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) advocacy, aid, and relief organization. Yazda was established to support the Yazidi, especially in northern Iraq, specifically Sinjar and Nineveh Plain, and northeastern Syria, where the Yazidi community has, as part of a deliberate "military, economic, and political strategy," been the focus of a genocidal campaign by ISIL that included mass murder, the separation of families, forced religious conversions, forced marriages, sexual assault, physical assault, torture, kidnapping, and slavery.