TOUFAH JALLOW: Hello is the camera on my good side?
My name is Toufah Jallow, I am an anti-rape activist. Um, first I will start with a prologue in my book as a way of introducing who I am. It starts;
“it is December, 2020. I sit in front of a computer screen with my friend and colleague Marian Volkman Brando watching the rough edit of a short documentary we are producing together. Over the course of 25 minutes, clips of me competing in a 2014 Gambian scholarship pageant are intercut with images of a man who ruled my country for more than two decades, an all powerful dictator whose death squad murdered and tortured at his command. Clips of powerful men from other countries appear as well. Harvey Weinstein, who use his position in the film industry to intimidate women into having sex with him. Jeffrey Epstein, who trafficked teenaged girls and young women. Mexican drug law, El Chapo who declared that young girls were his vitamins because raping them gave him life. But shall I add allegedly? It has been six years since I was declared a winner of a national pageant sponsored by my country’s president. The scholarship to study anywhere in the world, as my prize. Instead, president Yahya Jammeh raped me.
