Since Emma Watson was appointed as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014 she has made it her mission to challenge sexism and promote gender equality on a global scale, whilst promoting her brilliant HeForShe campaign.
And now, speaking at the Annual UN General Assembly in New York City, the 26-year-old actress delivered a series of powerful statements on sexual violence at universities as UN Women release its first HeForShe Impact 10X10X10 University Parity Report.
‘I know that my university experience shaped who I am,' Emma reveals to the crowd. 'I graduated from university four years ago. I had always dreamed of going. And I know how fortunate I am to have had the opportunity to do so. Brown [University] became my home.’
'But what if our experiences at university show us that women don’t belong in leadership. What if it shows us that, yes, women can study, but they shouldn’t lead a seminar? What if, as in many places around the world, it tells us that women don’t belong there at all.
‘What if, as is the case in far too many universities we are given the message that sexual violence isn’t actually a form of violence.
‘The university experience must tell women that their brain power is valued. And not just that, but that they belong within the leadership of the university itself and so importantly right now, the experience must make it clear that the safety of women, minorities and anyone who maybe vulnerable is a right [and] not a privilege.’
‘A right that will be respected by a community that believes and supports survivors and that recognises that when one person’s safety is violated, everyone feels their own safety is violated.’
‘A university should be a place of refuge that takes action against all forms of violence. That’s why we believe students should leave university believing in, striving for and expecting societies of true equality.’
Emma’s powerful speech comes just a few months after a rape survivor at Stanford University's heartbreaking and emotional court plea to her attacker went viral, after the judge who found 20-year-old Brock Allen Turner guilty of three counts of sexual assault sentenced him to six months in jail.
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