Sarah Williams

I believe no one should have to carry the weight of sexual violence alone, because I've carried it myself. I was raped by a man I matched with on Tinder, and in the aftermath I learned just how little protection exists for people navigating dating apps, and how alone survivors are left to process what happened. That experience is what drives everything I do now.

I decided my pain couldn't just be something I survived: it had to become something I used. So I founded What Were You Wearing Australia, a charity dedicated to ending sexual violence and supporting victim-survivors, built on the belief that healing and advocacy have to go hand in hand.

Since then, I've worked to turn that belief into action. In 2023, I led the advocacy campaign that made drink spiking, sexual assault and harassment training mandatory for bar staff across NSW. In 2024, I organised the No More rallies, Australia's largest gender-based violence rallies, which prompted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to declare gender-based violence a national emergency. Alongside this advocacy, WWYW runs free national healing groups, facilitated by mental health professionals, in more than eight locations every month, support that has now reached survivors for over three years.

Today, as CEO, I lead a growing national organisation with a community of more than 500,000 people across our platforms, while still showing up for the survivors our work exists to serve.

Through this Fellowship, I want to study global strategies for preventing dating app-facilitated sexual violence from platform accountability to prevention models used overseas and bring that learning home to make life-saving change for the millions of Australians who date online.