“The worst thing that happened to me wasn’t being raped, It was being betrayed by a broken criminal justice system” said Amanda Nguyen in an interview in NowThis News.
Amanda Nguyen is a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, the CEO of Rise– a non-governmental civil rights organization, and the 2022 TIME Women of the Year. Amanda has been an activist and has been to movements such as the Stopping the Violence against Asian Americans, but when she shared her story and the injustice she experience as a rape victim, it went viral!
Photo taken from Shondaland
Amanda Nguyen was raped when she was a college student at Harvard in Massachusetts. According to the law there, Amanda have 15 year statute of limitations for rape, which means she can choose to press charges once she is ready within that year span. So, Amanda tried to research more on what is her rights as a rape victim, and found almost no helpful information. She also had a rape kit or rape test kit, where the kit is used by a medical proffesional in order to gather physical evidence showing sexual assault, however, if 6 months have passed and no cases where filled, it will be destroyed, which what Amanda Nguyen found appaling.
With that, Amanda Nguyen founded Rise and made history by drafting and unanimously passing both the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights through the United States Congress and the Survivors' Resolution through the United Nations General Assembly. The bill includes: the right to not have your evidence be destroyed before the statute of limitations, the right to know what your rights are and resources, the right to not have to pay for your rape kit, and so much more that helps sexual assault victims.
Written by: Issa Calipay
Issa Calipay is a digital marketing intern of PS Media Enterprise. She is an incoming 4th Year student of Advertising and Public Relations from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines-Sta. Mesa.
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