Few people know that April is considered sexual assault awareness month, an epidemic increasingly contested worldwide.

The definition of sexual assault doesn’t leave space to misinterpretations:

“Any activity within a range of criminal acts of sexual nature, including, but not limited to, unwanted touching, kissing, rubbing, groping or forcing the victim, to sexually touch the perpetrator. Consent is NOT given.”

Clear? Good.

April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and this year we celebrated its official 18th anniversary.

The month-long campaign has been observed in the US since 2001, when the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) - born in 2000 from the hands of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape - began a series of coordinating efforts nationwide, to formally promote awareness, prevention, and elimination of sexual violence.

But stories of sexual violence are not something exclusive of the last two decades: they were just mainly thrown under the bus in the past, with a few exceptions able to defy the status quo. See gender inequality, fear of speaking out and even gender-based victim blaming and it will be easier to understand why sexual assaults gained popularity throughout time, without perpetrators being held accountable.

Fortunately, the 1970s came along with a thirst for change, a time where change was made to happen and where activism fighting sexual violence issues took over the spotlight.

It’s here where we can find the roots of the Sexual Assault Awareness movement, where women started to decide they had to fight injustice and oppression, along with gender discrimination and inequality.

Ever since, we have seen the rapid and continuous rise of many women-led organizations and movements in pro of the protection and vindication of women, aiming to support and provide safe spaces where their dignity can be respected, usually backed by an ever-growing community of social media followers.

These organizations have taken it to the streets of digital platforms to educate the public and create standardized acknowledgment of what sexual violence and its branched-off topics entail.

The #DenimDayCampaign is one of the many globally disseminated campaigns whose goal is to generate a more in-depth understanding of rape scenarios and the many circumstances under which rape happens.

This now social-media-famous campaign began after a rape conviction overruling was made by the Italian Supreme Court in 1998, when the 45-year-old accused perpetrator appealed his case citing sex had been consensual with the 18-year-old victim.

According to The New York Times, the reasoning behind the court’s overturning lied on the fact that the female victim was wearing tight jeans, thereby, arguing she had to help the person raping her to remove her pants, inherently implying consent.

This decision triggered women from the Italian Parliament to go into work, the following day, dressed in jeans to express solidarity with the victim.

And so the first #DenimDayCampaign came to existence in 1999, brought to life by Peace Over Violence, a California based non-profit Organization who has been in charge of running the event year after year on a Wednesday in April, in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The theme for the campaign has always been protesting against inaccurate, wrong and damaging attitudes, rumors and myths surrounding everything involving sexual assault.