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Sexual Assault Survivors Rally Behind Hashtag After Trump Tweet

  • Donald Trump tweeted: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says...why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?”

    Donald Trump tweeted: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says...why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?” | Photo: Reuters

Published 23 September 2018
Opinion

A new hashtag #WhyIDidn’tReport is flooding Twitter with stories of survivors and explanations for why they didn't make a report.

Criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump has spurred a new wave of indignation from the internet as survivors of sexual assault rally behind a new Twitter hashtag: #WhyIDidn’tReport.

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On Friday, Trump demanded to know why university professor Christine Blasey Ford waited 30 years to report Supreme Court Justice hopeful Brett Kavanaugh's sexual assault which happened to her as a teenager in the 80s’.

Trump tweeted: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!

“The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?”

The response was deafening. Across Twitter, survivors recounted their experiences, trauma, mistrials, and years of suffocating silence in an effort to inform the president of the United States of the complications surrounding sexual crimes and the shortcomings of the country’s judicial system.

These are some of the responses:

 
 
 

As a Supreme Court judge, Kavanaugh would have incredible power over similar cases and this could have prompted Blasey Ford to share her story, said author and past rape victim Deborah Copaken.

She wrote: “If (Kavanaugh) were being confirmed for the Supreme Court; if his decision over what would happen to my daughter's body, should she become inadvertently pregnant ... if one of the key aspects of his job as a judge would be to show and to have shown good judgment over the course of his life, you better believe that I, like Ford, would come forward and tell the committee.

"Even if it meant going into hiding, as she's had to do. Even if it meant getting death threats, as she's received."

Blasey Ford is scheduled to testify in court next Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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