Nina Funnell

We were like, this photographer has not understood the brief.

You know, this is a strong, empowered woman who wants to say her name and who is demanding law reform, having experienced child sexual abuse.

How dare we present her in that, you know,

in that light of being feeble and almost broken.

So I said to the editor, no, we're not using that photo.

Janelle's 14-year-old son picked up a camera, took her hand, because he saw it too and he was like, no, that's bullshit, and wrote the words, let us speak on her hand.

That's how it came about.

She put her hand then in front of her face so that she couldn't be identified.

He took the photo of her hand, but covering her face so that we could still use it legally.

And it was the most, and it was a really strong photo because it was her hand down the barrel of the camera saying, let us speak.

And that not only became, not only did we use that photo in print in the newspaper the next day, but that became the iconic image of the entire campaign.

And we recreated that image over and over and over again.

Now, that didn't come from me.

That came from a 14-year-old boy who knew his mom was a badass and who was refusing to see her portrayed.

And she and I were also in full agreement that she should not be portrayed in the stereotypical way that victim survivors are portrayed.

And I think like one of the things that I'm really proud of with the Let Her Speak, Let Us Speak campaign was that we really did at every point, you know, want to reposition and revisit how we portray victim survivors.

The victim survivors, you know, so often in the media, victim survivors historically have been positioned as broken, downtrodden, to be pitied, to be sympathised.

And that's not empowering at all.

Whereas I think one of the things that was successful about the campaign, you know, I often reflect on when we do a campaigns, we reflect on the things that maybe didn't work so well and also the things that did work well so that we learn for next time.

And one of the things that I think did work well in that campaign was obviously, you know, we got the law reform, which was the major goal.