Rape survivor initiates global beach run to fight sexual violence

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Through a global beach run, a rape survivor decided to become the voice of women, men and children that had been sexually abused in their life.

Then three weeks before the ten years mark of the sexual assault, she gets a phone call from Paris. They had caught the man who raped her back in Paris. She was called to testify in court. She recognized the man immediately. “All the memories came flashing back, my world began to crumble,” she remembers. It was the most traumatic time of her life. After a long judiciary battle the man was finally sentenced to twelve years in prison. But soon after, hardly two years had passed, he got released from prison. McFarlane continued her judiciary battle with the French justice, spent a total of over $50,000, but her appeal was rejected. Again, she felt isolated. “Not once did the system treat me with compassion,” she says. “I was the victim, but in the process, I felt like the guilty party.”

So she ran 16 kilometres along the South African beach with other people who supported the cause. And little by little she found a more purposeful role. She went to places like Japan, India, England, Mexico and Fiji. She has run in 33 countries and territories so far, all over the globe. Most recently, she ran her 16 kilometres in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. About every six days she moves over to a new place. Her goal is to run in every country and territory of the world, about 230 places total. This will take about five years of her lifetime and will end in France as a symbolic end of her story. It is a restless journey on behalf of the victims of sexual violence. Ms McFarlane wouldn’t state it like this though. She refuses to talk about victims outside of the legal term. For her, people who went through this are not victims, but survivors. The use of language is important, she says. “Calling someone a survivor empowers him or her to speak openly about what happened.”

Rape survivor initiates global beach run to fight sexual violence

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