A former teen beauty queen has starred in an anti-rape documentary encouraging women to go public about the abuse they have suffered that's been so successful over 300,000 people have gone to the documentary’s website to tell their own stories of survival.
Linor Abargil was crowned Miss World in 1998, just weeks after she was raped. Refusing to keep quiet on a stigmatised issue, not only did she press charges against her attacker, who was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in jail, but she used her platform as a beauty queen to bring attention to the issue of rape.
Now 34, Linor is not only a criminal lawyer, but she is on an international speaking tour and stars in Brave Miss World, a documentary where she not only details her rape but speaks to other victims, some of them sharing their stories of rape and sexual assault for the first time.
‘If you go through something very bad or very hard, the only pill you can take is to tell, to take it out of your system. Because if you don't, it is like a tumour — it becomes bigger and bigger until it kills you,' she told The Associated Press. 'I feel that I have this privilege to really help other women to open up.’
The documentary shows how rape affects women from all walks of life, in all societies, across the globe. She spoke to South African girls, Hollywood celebrities like Fran Drescher and Joan Collins and American college students. ‘There is something about Linor that gives credibility to rape survivors. They know that they will be believed, it helps relieve that burden of shame,’ says Cecilia Peck, who directed the documentary. This has, in turned the documentary’s website into a place where people can share their stories, to help them get some release, and affirmation that they're not alone.
Linor says it's made her think differently about winning the Miss World competition, or as she puts it that ‘stupid crown' because it's given her a platform to affect change. ‘I think I have a lot of very good things to say to women around the world. I realised it [the rape] doesn’t define me, it can’t define me.'
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Picture: PA
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.