About this episode

Lyn Smith shares her journey from being a survivor of sexual assault to becoming an advocate for justice.

Content Warning (CW): This episode discusses themes of sexual assault, which some listeners may find distressing or triggering. On this inaugural episode of the This Human Life podcast your host, Paul D. Lowe, talks Lyn Smith about three simple words that are actually an umbrella for a range of things: What matters most? In this case, Lyn decides to talk about injustice, both personal and global after being the victim of sexual assaults in her teens. KEY TAKEAWAYS The main injustice that affected me stemmed from a couple of nasty childhood experiences. I’m a two-time sexual assault survivor. This was in the 1970s when I was in my teens and I didn’t report it at the time. I only reported it when I was 42 years old. I was going to go to university to become a veterinarian, but that didn’t happen because my education was interrupted, I went totally off the rails in terms of academia and left school without the qualifications. At 19 I joined the police force, and I think that’s because of the injustice I felt at telling no one about it. It was shocking to me to see the stats around the amount of women who were making sexual assault claims that were false. That was very disheartening…

People in this episode

Host: Paul D. Lowe

Guest: Lyn Smith

Topics covered

• sexual assault
• injustice
• advocacy
• personal experience
• survivorship

Keywords

• sexual assault
• injustice
• advocacy
• survivor
• police force
• education
• reporting

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