On 1 March, AWARE’s Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC) invited South-African born Claire McFarlane to speak about her experience with sexual assault. Around 30 people attended the event, including a former client of SACC, Emily, who shared her own traumatic experience of sexual assault in Singapore.

Emily discussed the pervasive myth that sexual violence just doesn’t happen in Singapore – and indeed, that this was something she didn’t think would happen to her either. She went into detail about the discouraging experiences from people/authorities she wanted to seek help from. Eventually, she found solace at the SACC; and she praised our services and staff for telling her what she needed to know, while empowering her to make her own decisions without judgment and with plenty of empathy and support.

Finally, she pushed for more open dialogue to bring some lasting change, as so many cases go unreported due to unsupportive responses from authorities, peers and family members.

Claire then opened her talk by recounting her own ordeal, which happened over 18 years ago while she was studying abroad in Paris. She described her experience of being first a ‘victim’ and then a ‘survivor’ – the victim within the initial criminal process; and the survivor, an empowered victim, at the turning point of recovery. She speaks of her own journey to recovery, which sadly took over much of her adult life.

Sexual violence is one of the biggest epidemics of our time. It is still often seen as a “women’s problem” – though, as Claire points out, sexual violence can affect anyone, and crosses all boundaries.

She shares with the first speaker the same belief: that plenty of courage is needed to break silence, as well as the need to empower other survivors. Her project ‘Footsteps To Inspire’ seeks to unite survivors through running. She aims to run 3,000km of beach, barefoot, across 184 countries, in support of rape survivors around the world. She will engage local communities to start speaking up and creating dialogue around sexual violence. She will be running in Singapore on 4 March (Saturday) and invites anyone and everyone to join her.

SACC manager, Anisha, shared that SACC has seen over 1000 survivors of sexual assault. Many felt alone and unsupported, because people think sexual violence just doesn’t happen in Singapore. The centre has seen survivors who have experienced different forms of sexual assault , from verbal sexual harassment to rape. 8 out of 10 survivors knew their perpetrators. It’s time we talk about this. The more we talk, the more we can create a community of support for survivors. The more we talk, the more we encourage survivors to seek help. And the more we talk, the more accessible justice is to them.

Find out more about Footsteps To Inspire here: https://www.projectbra.org/register