Amanda Nguyen was raped while attending Harvard University.
She learned under state law her rape kit could be destroyed after six months, even though
the statute of limitations for bringing charges against her rapist was 15 years.
So she wrote a bill to change the law and it passed unanimously in Congress.
Now at just 26 years old, Nguyen, who is also the founder of RISE, a national nonprofit
advocating for rape survivor’s civil rights, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
We sat down with Nguyen, who told us her story and how she’s working with activists and
celebrities to make legal rights for rape survivors consistent across the country and
around the world.
I wrote the bill and worked with members of congress because I needed those civil rights.
While I was at Harvard I was raped and I went to the criminal justice system and I discovered
these huge irregularities within our American criminal justice system for rape survivors.
In my specific case in Massachusetts before the law passed there, rape kits, which are
the evidence that's collected, that rip kit could be destroyed at six months.
So what would you have to do to keep it from being destroyed?
It was as if, the Massachusetts criminal justice system had designed a Kafkaesque game for
me to play.
It was a countdown, very saw-like until my evidence, my justice in a sense, could be
literally destroyed.
It is a form of secondary re-traumatization.
I often tell people that the worst thing that happened to me was not my rape, it was being
betrayed by a broken criminal justice system.
So after this bill, which passed unanimously, in a very divided Congress, getting a bill
passed unanimously is no small feat.
So all of these things are reversed now after that bill passed?
The first law that passed was on the federal level, it did pass unanimously on a roll call
vote in both chambers of Congress.
However, the federal law only applies to rape cases that are tried in federal courts.
So, survivors of the military, survivors on Native American territory and survivors in
cases that are tried in federal court.
The majority of rape cases are tried in the state courts so that means that we have to
pass the model survivor bill of rights state by state in America.
What we do now is we incubate civil rights campaigns, specifically of rape survivors
who write in saying that they have experienced something similar and they want to organize
in their community to pass the bill of rights in their own state and to date we have passed
19 bills.
And you guys also are trying to take this to and international level, it's not just
in the states.
So what's going on there at the international level and what are some of those challenges
that you're facing?
We heard not only from American citizens but from people around the world who wrote in
saying, "I'm a survivor and the criminal justice system in my country could do better on this
issue."
Sexual violence is not only a women's issue, not only public health issue.
It's also, quite frankly a global security issue.
A standard technique that a lot of violent extremists use to radicalize young people is
by raping them, especially in cultures of honor that is one way that violent extremists
have recruited suicide bombers, to redeem your honor after you've been raped these are
some things that you can do.
Peace is not the absence of visible conflict on Earth, right?
To access true peace, there must be an opportunity to pursue justice.
That means globally as well.
So what RISE is doing is we're trying to pass a worldwide survivor bill of rights, essentially
a United Nations General Assembly resolution that calls on global leaders to prioritize
sexual violence as an issue in and of itself.
You are just 26 years old, you've done all of this work not only in the U.S. but now
you're also championing this cause worldwide and that's got you nominated for this Nobel
Peace Prize alongside another American who's been nominated and that is President Donald Trump.
So how do you, 26-year-old daughter of refugee immigrants, how do you feel about that?
Being nominated alongside this president?
Look, I think what people really want right now is the ability to do something.
There are so many dumpster fires around the world in terms of issues and things that we
are trying to fix and what I see is people of all ages, especially young people having
activism fatigue.
We are constantly trying to fix this issue that has popped up.
What I want to show people is that it doesn't matter where you come from.
It doesn't matter if your parents are refugees.
It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic background is.
You can do anything that you want to do and if you want to change the world you don't
have to be a certain set of things in order to achieve that.
I really want that to resonate with young girls of color.