Hollywood Popular Artists

Sep 28th 2012, 22:29

Somebody needs to give "90210" star AnnaLynne McCord an award for being amazing. Last weekend she hosted Life Is Love, an event to help the Somaly Mam Foundation, and while she was there she talked about her own experience with assault.

"Has anyone ever been raped? Sexually abused? Not said 'no' when you felt you didn't have the right to?" AnnaLynne asked at the event. "I know what it feels like."

AnnaLynne is very close with the Somaly Mam Foundation, which works to fight human trafficking and save women and children who have been sold into modern-day slavery. Somaly Mam, the founder of the org, recounts in her book about her many rapes, and maybe this is why AnnaLynne felt safe to talk about it here.

Speaking to Us Weekly later, she said, "I had a very similar experience to what these girls [who are helped by the Somaly Mam Foundation] go through 20 times a night. It happened to me once by somebody that I knew, and it is a very interesting thing to feel that you do not have the voice to say 'no.' It wasn't an attack or anything like that -- I just had no voice. I did not know how to say, 'I don't want this. Please do not do this to me.'"

It is important for victims of sexual assualt to speak up. Many feel scared or ashamed, and they shouldn't. They did nothing wrong. "Finally I can say I was taken advantage of -- not from my own shame that I did something to deserve that -- and now I can have a clear conscience," she went on.

If you or someone you know has ever been taken advantage of, there are people who are there to help you heal and seek justice. There's no such thing as doing something that makes you "deserve" to be assaulted. AnnaLynne knows it's important to speak up about this.

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