Red My Lips: Turning tragedy into hope

RAPE. It is every woman’s worst nightmare. For Durban resident, Darian Ryan, that nightmare became a reality at the age of 16.

She recently contacted the Northglen News to tell us of her ordeal, which she said began when she was walking home from work and was approached by an unknown man. The young waitress, dressed in a jacket and baggy jeans, made it clear that his advances were unwelcome, and when he aggressively continued she tried to flee from him.

At this point warning bells had gone off in her head and Ryan fled into one of the buildings with a security guard and begged him to allow her to make a phone call to the police. But he refused.

Even after she explained to him that a man was chasing her. The security guard watched as the man and one of his accomplices dragged her out of the building and into their vehicle.

There were now four of them. And she was sitting in the back seat, wedged between two of them. She knew she had to escape. She tried to jump out of the moving vehicle, but her attempt failed.

They drove her to an isolated beach where they took all her money and her necklace. Once again she attempted to flee. This time she ran for the ocean, thinking that she would rather let the sea have her than her abductors.

But she could not run fast enough and they caught her once again. They then took turns assaulting her at knife point, but she fought back as much as she could, screaming and kicking. When they were done they simply left her at the beach. Eventually she made her way to a police station.

There she was also let down by the system. The female police officer who took her statement made her feel as though she did not believe her and that the trauma she had just experienced was trivial.

The investing officer took her back to the scene of the crime hours after the incident, and then refused to take her shirt into evidence, which was covered in the men’s DNA.

The district surgeon also refused to complete her rape kit exam, citing that Ryan was ‘menstruating’. Ryan tried to explain that her period was not due for weeks and the blood was caused by the trauma. But he would not listen. He also did not give her a morning-after pill or any other medication

Police later dropped her at a taxi rank with no money, forcing her to make her own way home. Fortunately a friend spotted her there and took her home. When she arrived home she told her mother of the incident who didn’t know how to handle the news, and simply walked out of the room without saying a word.

It was only recently that she found the courage to speak out, after finding acceptance and love at a church. Now the mother and successful business woman hopes to inspire hope among other victims through the Red My Lips campaign, that ran through the month of April.

“It was eating away at me like a poison, working it’s way through my blood stream. My life was a mess. I became emotionally detached. But now I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor,” she said. On the campaign’s website she shared a video of her story and has appealed to the public to donate towards the cause.

“I want to create awareness to encourage other victims to speak up and seek help. I want to educate them on their rights and the procedures that need to be taken after such an incident as I was uneducated on the matter. I want to be the voice for every woman, child and man that has been a victim and can’t speak for themselves. They should know that it was not their fault, despite any circumstances,” she said.

Ryan also believes that society should be teaching men to respect women and to protect them, instead of telling women what they should do to prevent being targeted . “If men respected women they would not violate them. Currently there is a sense of entitlement among men, and we live in a society where the victims are often blamed for the incidents,” she said.

Red My Lips is an international non-profit awareness campaign that encourages women to raise awareness about sexual violence and combat rape myths and victim-blaming by wearing red lipstick throughout the month of April.

To support Ryan’s cause visit www.classy.org/darianryan.