Empowering sexual assault survivors and highlighting the importance of education as prevention is set to be the focus for new Australian of the Year Grace Tame.
The 26-year-old from Tasmania was awarded the honour last night, having already been named the Apple Isle’s Australian of the Year.
Ms Tame was awarded for her tireless advocacy for sexual assault survivors, resulting in the overturning of Tasmanian laws preventing survivors from speaking out.
She was just 15 when she was groomed and abused by her high school maths teacher, who was later jailed for his crimes.
Her experience helped spark the #LetHerSpeak campaign, helping Ms Tame become the first woman in Tasmania to be granted the legal right to speak out about her experience as a sexual assault survivor.
Ms Tame has pledged to spend the next year advocating for better education on assault, grooming and psychological manipulation by abusers.
We’ve come a long way but there’s still more work to do in a lot of areas. Child sexual abuse and cultures that enable it still exist. Just as the impacts of evil are borne by all of us, so too are solutions born of all of us.