Time magazine has just released its Person of the Year issue. The cover features women who helped define the issue’s theme, “silence breakers”: actress Ashley Judd, singer Taylor Swift, lobbyist and activist Adama Iwu, strawberry picker Isabel Pascual, and former Uber engineer Susan Fowler. They have spoken publicly about their experiences with sexual harassment, launching a movement that has brought down several personalities, most infamous of which is film producer Harvey Weinstein.
One of the women featured in the inside pages is Filipina-Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, who came out with sexual harassment complaints against Weinstein in 2015. In October 2017, The New Yorker released a video recording where one could hear voices allegedly belonging to Weinstein and Gutierrez, and where Weinstein admits groping Gutierrez’s breasts in a supposed meeting. The video was part of a sting operation by the New York Police Department after Gutierrez filed her complaint.
In a report by the New York Daily News, published on December 7, 2017, Ambra is celebrating the milestone and is now using her voice for another cause: raising awareness about impoverished children. She is currently helping an organization called Humanility, which raises funds to provide homes for these children.
In her interview with the New York Daily News, Ambra says, “I’m very happy to see the world changing into something good.” She adds, “It’s true that unity gives you strength.”
However, as vindicated as she is now, she also shares that she hopes that they had listened to her when she first talked about the harassment: “I only wish this had happened two years ago. I was really alone back then, but everything happens in the right time and right now is only the start of an amazing future.”
The investigation on Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconducts, as narrated by more than 80 victims, is still ongoing.