While being honoured for her work in the fight against sexual assault and rape, Viola Davis shared her sexual assault stories. The HTGAWM star was honoured by the The Rape Foundation this week and she spoke about the assaults that she, her sister and the women around her experienced growing up.
Here’s a snippet of her powerful speech:
“Myself, my mother, my sisters, my friend Rebecca, my friend from childhood, we all have one thing in common: We are all survivors of sexual assault in some way, shape or form,”
“Listen, when I was young, there were so many men in the neighborhood who gave you money if they could touch you,” she continued. “Going over to a friend’s house for a birthday party at the age of seven, there was always someone there who touched you.”
“My sister Danielle was 8 years old when she was on roller skates and went down to the corner store at 1 o’clock in the afternoon and was sexually assaulted in the aisles,” said Davis. “She told my mom right away – my mom ran down to the store. The store owner’s response was: ‘He does that to all the little girls.’ ”“My mom flagged down the police, and the perpetrator did pay,” she continued. “He paid. He was fined $10 a month. It’s over for him, but I’d like to redefine survivor.”
“My sister is now a heroin addict, she’s a prostitute.”
“The friend of mine who’s a survivor, I call her a survivor because her 7-year-old daughter was taken from the backyard of her grandma’s house while playing in the middle of the day. They couldn’t find her for an entire day, and they finally found her sexually assaulted, strangled dead. So her mom, she’s surviving. It’s just that when she’s surviving, when she’s alive just having a meal, she has flashbacks – post-traumatic stress disorder. I asked her how she gets through, she says: ‘I don’t know, it’s a nightmare. I pray to God,’ ”
“Memories demand attention, because memories have teeth,” continued the actress. “That sexual assault perpetrator can move on. The only person who rapes is the rapist. The person who is left behind has to pay over, and over, and over again.
Read the full speech here.
See also: Viola Davis makes Emmy Awards history
