You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today first coined a two-word phrase which has become the emblem of a major social-cultural

movement across the globe. Those two words? Me Too. Tarana Burke deployed that mantra more than a

decade ago to send a message to the marginalized and voiceless girls and women that she was working with in some of

America's most neglected communities. Shocking numbers of them were survivors of sexual violence

and abuse. But it wasn't until the explosive allegations made against the Hollywood movie mogul

Harvey Weinstein hit the media in 2017 that Me Too became a viral hashtag and the

battle cry for a global movement of women determined to confront sexual violence. In a way,

Ms. Burke found her own campaign expropriated by high-profile, well-connected women with much greater access to the media.

But she saw the merits of making common cause. Now, post-Weinstein and a slew of other abuse cases,

which made international news, there is a much greater awareness of the scale of the problem,

and a determination to seek healing and justice for survivors. But look beyond the headlines and how much has really changed.

Tarana Burke, welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you for having me. I want to begin with those two words,

Me Too. It was a phrase, as I said, you coined it long before, Harvey Weinstein before the Me Too went

viral.

Did you feel in a way you lost control of that phrase?

Well, I thought, you know, in the first days when Me Too and Viral, it was very nerve-wracking

for a person like me.

I was not known.

I wasn't in the spotlight.

And so I thought that it would be lost.

...