I am sure you know that feeling you get when you are walking alone at night, and you feel like someone, anyone, could be following you.
I also know that in some point in your life you had to be scared of something, but do you really know what fear is until you have truly faced it?
Safe is a word that has lost meaning to us. Not many of us think that we are safe today when we walk around the streets or open the door to our cars.
In the United States, every 2 minutes someone is sexually assaulted according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN).
Men, women, and even children have to live with this harsh reality everyday after someone destroys their life, their hopes and their dreams in just an instant.
Women end up blaming themselves after they are assaulted because society tells them that if you are wearing skimpy clothing you are looking for it.
Men can never feel one hundred percent like themselves again, after being sexually assaulted because they couldn’t control what happened to them.
And unfortunately, children who are not even aware of what is going and can’t even defend themselves are abused too.
Forty four percent of assault victims are under the age of 18, 80% are under the age of 30 according to RAINN.
What would you do if you were in that position? Would you speak up and fight, or stay quiet and suffer?
During the 1990s in Italy, a young girl got rapped; the perpetrator was sent to jail. Justice had been served.
Later on, he appealed his sentence, the ruling was dismissed, and the assaulter was released.
An Italian Supreme Court judge said that the girl’s jeans were so tight that she had to have helped the man to take them off in order for him to have intercourse according to demindayusa.org.
The women who were in the court got upset, and as a sign of protest wore jeans to work ever since.
This is how Denim Day started in April of 1999 in Los Angeles, and has continued ever since according to Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Campaign.
Denim Day is a rape prevention education campaign, where supporters wear jeans the day of and make a protest against violence using fashion.
This has been a day created to support victims, and help them to fight and express their terrifying experience in hopes that someday this can be stopped.
It is a day created to raise awareness in the U.S. that rape is never the victim’s fault, although sometimes when its you in those shoes it can feel like it is.
Denim Day has helped victims to speak up, and let go of that fear, shame and hurt. At the same time it helps other to survive.
Even though this day has been created to support men, women and children out there, sexual abuse still happens today.
Each year there are 207, 754 victims of sexual assault, and this is only in the United States.
It is scary to see how there are thousands of people out there who can hurt others, without thinking of the consequences.
Let’s all do our part and raise awareness of this terrible reality in hopes that it can be changed in the future.
Even though a lot of us are not victims, we can help others who have been and support this cause by wearing jeans in April.