2018 Shine the Light on Woman Abuse campaign launches with moving survivor story

A Woodstock woman is being honoured as a survivor in this year’s Shine the Light on Woman Abuse campaign.

The London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC) officially launched the campaign with an event Friday morning, where Shainee Chalk shared her story.

In 2011, she received Facebook messages about nude photos of her that had been posted to a revenge porn site.

“I scrolled and eventually found myself and there was no mistake that it was me,” she said.

“The photos were all anonymously posted and you could comment as much as you wanted on them. They also posted my Facebook account link along with my first and last name, the school that I went to, and the town that I was in.”

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Chalk said she received hundreds of messages from strangers and people from her high school and hometown who she long assumed had forgotten about her.

“I couldn’t go anywhere without anyone ever bringing it up,” she explained through tears. “I cried daily and nightly for I don’t know how long. I felt like I couldn’t go to the police, I felt like I couldn’t go to the police. I thought they couldn’t help me. I had sent them myself and I felt like I deserved what happened.”

“Telling my father wasn’t an option. Who could tell their father that they had sent a bunch of nudes to guys and now were being punished for it? I know I never deserved this now, and no one does.”

She eventually went to the Woodstock Police Service and learned that an investigation into the revenge porn website was already underway, but still the photos kept appearing online.

Now, she works to raise awareness on revenge porn and prevent other women and girls from becoming victims.

The campaign is also remembering Maddison Fraser, who became involved in the sex trade at the age of 19, and died two years later in a car crash in Edmonton in 2015 alongside the impaired driver, a sex purchaser.

Speaking with 980 CFPL ahead of the launch, LAWC’s special events and volunteer coordinator Jen Dunn said encouraging Londoners to wear and show off the colour purple lets women know they’re not alone and that help is available.

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“If a woman hears about the campaign, or sees someone wearing purple, or goes to work and sees a colleague wearing a purple pin, what kind of impact would that have for that woman to know somebody would maybe support them?”

The push to wear purple is in November, and the colour is said to represent courage and strength. Organizers say wearing purple sends a message to women the shame or blame they feel doesn’t belong to them, but to their abuser.