World premiere for brave documentary
The TEARS Foundation and EggTech hosted the world premiere of the documentary Brave Miss World at the Ster Kinekor at Fourways Mall.
TEARS stands for ‘Transform Education About Rape and Sexual abuse’. The organisation was founded in 2012 by Mara Glennie and has specialised in the development of a nationally accessible assistance and support network for survivors of rape and sexual abuse.
The documentary is in keeping with the ethos of TEARS in that the film follows former Miss World Linor Abargil on her journey to help survivors of rape and abuse by encouraging them to speak out and get justice. The Israeli beauty is herself a rape survivor. In 1998, just seven weeks before she was crowned Miss World, Abargil (then 18) was raped at knife-point in Milan by travel agent Uri Shlomo. Abargil went on to compete in the international beauty pageant but after being crowned she spoke out about the rape and pressed charges against Shlomo. Shlomo was eventually tricked into returning to Israel where, unbeknown to him, Abargil had also pressed charges. He was arrested, convicted of the rape, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The documentary also explores the difficulty many survivors have in trying to convict their rapists.
Dr Lynn Pamensky of TEARS explained that Abargil had connected with the organisation since they shared the same message.
Dr Pamensky said, “It is a well known statistic that South Africa is the world capital for ‘equal’ abuse: that means all types of abuse regardless of age, race or creed.”
Abargil could not be at the world premiere of the documentary because of her new baby but she will be visiting South Africa in March 2014 to tour the country and spread her message of justice.
