Younger survivors are more vocal, more aware, and less willing to hide: Somy Ali

Mumbai: Having saved over 50,000 lives with her NGO No More Tears, Somy Ali stressed that she has witnessed a generational shift in survivors. Though she feels that today’s generation has become more aware, she stressed that it makes them more prone to online harassment and abuse.
She said, “Younger survivors are more vocal, more aware, and less willing to hide. They’ve grown up in the era of hashtags, and while that visibility is powerful, it also makes them targets for online harassment and digital abuse in ways older survivors didn’t face. Their needs are different: they want not just safety, but platforms to speak their truth.”

“Our job is to protect that courage and make sure society listens instead of silencing them the way it silenced so many of us,” she added. As a leader, Somy doesn’t believe in charisma or titles; she said it’s about bearing witness to pain and refusing to look away. For her, leadership means, she shared, “being the last line of defense for someone society has already discarded. It also means standing up to uncomfortable truths, including calling out systems and industries that glorify predators.” “My greatest lesson is this: true leadership is not about being admired; it’s about being relentless in the pursuit of justice, no matter how costly,” she added. She doesn’t even measure the lives saved in numbers or statistics. She said, “Impact is not 50,448 lives saved. It’s the survivor who calls you years later to say she just graduated college. It’s the little boy who once hid under the bed and now tells me proudly that he’s captain of his soccer team. It’s the trans teenager who tells me, “I’m still alive because you believed me when no one else did.” “Numbers matter, but moments like these are the real metrics of change,” Somy concluded.