Former Meta COO and author Sheryl Sandberg is famous for encouraging women to “lean in” and make their voices heard in the business world. It was therefore fitting that this year she chose to take up the cause of women who can never lean in or speak up again – the victims of sexual assaults by Hamas on October 7.
She used her considerable power in the corporate world and media to make a documentary about the rapes and sexual abuse of Israeli women by the terrorists, called Screams Before Silence, which was released on YouTube in April. More than 1.2 million people have watched the film, now available with subtitles in several languages. Sandberg oversaw the making of Screams Before Silence and personally conducted the interviews with rape victims, witnesses, first responders, medical personnel, forensic experts, and officials.
Giving survivors a voice
Horrified by the widespread denial of these rapes by international organizations, including women’s groups that previously espoused the mantra “Believe All Women,” Sandberg took decisive action to bring the evidence of Hamas’s horrific crimes and their systematic use of rape as a weapon of war to light.
She gave the violence survivors a voice and methodically presented evidence as to why so few have been able to speak out: The vast majority were murdered by the terrorists after and sometimes during the assaults.
Reiterating a statement she has made many times since October 7, Sandberg says in the film, “Rape is never resistance. Rape is never acceptable.”
Calling her advocacy for these victims “the most important work of my life,” she concludes: “We can take the pain and trauma and turn it into hope, turn it into commitment, turn it into conviction that we are not going to let this happen again.”