On September 2, Brock Turner, the Stanford University student sentenced to six short months in a county jail for sexually assaulting another student with intent to rape, was released after serving half his sentence – already felt by many to be incredibly lenient given the seriousness of his crime. One of our writers, Selina Leem, was brokenhearted on behalf of Turner’s victim, and has asked us to publish this open letter to him outlining her own experience of sexual abuse, and the impact it has had on her growing up. Thank you Selina.

Iakwe Brock Turner.

My name is Selina Neirok Leem and I am from the Republic of the Marshall Islands. You probably don’t even know where the Marshall Islands is, right? We are a very small nation, one of the most vulnerable to climate change, in the Pacific, halfway between Hawai’i and Australia. We do not own a lot of land but we do own a big area in the ocean. As coined by our Ambassador for Climate, Tony de Brum, we are a large ocean country. Turner, you must be wondering why I am writing to you. Continue →