What if Harvey Weinstein’s many accusers had known they were not alone? A new, anonymous platform lets victims report abuse – and get their stories heard

On 9 January 2018 the American actors Jessica Barth and Caitlin Dulany met at Verlaine, a hip coffee bar on Beverly Boulevard, in West Hollywood. They weren’t alone. Nine other women had also arrived, all of whom had recently accused the film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. The meeting had been arranged as part of an hour-long BBC Panorama documentary, Weinstein: The Inside Story, on which I worked as a producer. At Verlaine, some of the women were not far away from where their alleged abuse had taken place.

Until only a few months earlier, Barth and Dulany had felt alone and powerless, unaware that other women had suffered through similar incidents, and unable to find a platform through which they could safely speak out.

But by the time the group met in Verlaine, more than 100 women had now come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct (Weinstein denies any non-consensual sex. His pre-trial begins on 7 March). In the three months since the initial allegations first appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, in October 2017, Barth, Dulany and the nine other women had slowly begun to share their own experiences.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest United we stand: Voices in Action. Illustration: Jimmy Turrell/The Observer

They arrived at the bar one by one. Some appeared apprehensive. Beneath smiles and laughter there was a nervousness about the “sinister” circumstances under which they were meeting. But they greeted each other warmly, as if they were old friends, empowered by the fact they no longer felt alone.

Dulany recognised Barth and introduced herself, and soon the pair began sharing stories. Before long, the group stumbled upon a common frustration: what if they had been made aware there were other Weinstein accusers sooner? Might they have been able to stop him earlier?

At the meeting, the two women agreed they wanted to help prevent others in the entertainment industry from slipping into a similar position: powerless to report an incident and unaware others might have experienced similar misconduct. Together, they decided to do something about it.

We knew uniting victims had to be part of what we did next

Barth and Dulany have spent the past year establishing Voices in Action, an anonymous online reporting system, which launched in October 2018. The organisation’s website, which has been backed by top lawyers and Hollywood actors, allows people to record incidents of sexual harassment and abuse. Crucially, victims will be alerted by the website’s team of lawyers if others get in touch about the same alleged perpetrator.

Since their first meeting, Dulany and Barth have been in contact with dozens of other Weinstein accusers on email threads and WhatsApp groups. Dulany, 51, alleges Weinstein sexually assaulted her at the Hotel Du Cap in Cannes in 1996. She tells me that when she first started connecting with other women who had had similar experiences, it was a “game changer” for her.

“Assault can be difficult to talk about, even with our closest family and friends,” she says. “When I met everyone that day at the coffee shop it was still raw. I’d been silent about it for so long, so I wasn’t sure if I could talk to people about what happened. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to leave my house.”

Barth agrees. “I was definitely, like: ‘Why am I doing this?’” she says. “I was very nervous. It felt awkward to be coming together under such circumstances, but I’m so glad I went, because what came out of it has been a true gift over what has been a monstrous time period.”

Dulany adds: “I was taken aback to meet everyone. It was a shining light, and it became an important part of our healing. Suddenly having the support of others with similar experiences… It was transformative and that’s why we knew uniting victims had to be part of what we did next.”

Barth, 38, is best known for her role in the Ted movie franchise. She alleges Weinstein sexually harassed her at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel in 2011, in exchange for a movie deal. “We’ve seen the statistics,” she says. “Women don’t report sexual crimes. They don’t feel there is a place to go and don’t think they’re going to be believed.” She adds: “That’s why we feel our platform is so necessary.”

Barth and Dulany happen to live “about four blocks from each other”, and “talk every day, pretty much”. They say they want to “change the culture” that led to them feeling they couldn’t speak about what had happened to them.

“We have seen and experienced why people in our industry are vulnerable, and we see the solution,” Dulany says. “We’ve been working really hard over the past year, speaking to experts, making sure we get this right. We don’t want to see people going through what we did, but they still are and they still don’t know where to go.”

Neither of Voices in Action’s co-founders will have access to the website’s submissions. The only person to see reports will be a “trauma-trained moderator”, whose identity will be kept private. As soon as a report is lodged, the victim is given a time-stamped receipt that can be provided as a form of documentation in court or provided to the police. When there’s a perpetrator match, victims are offered a free consultation with trusted lawyers, and given suggestions of investigative reporters they can get in touch with.

Barth says that in 2015 she heard Double Jeopardy actor Ashley Judd give a speech describing a “very similar” incident to her own. “She didn’t name him,” Barth says, “but I knew right away it was Harvey. I wrote to her agent and didn’t hear back, but just realising there was someone else out there made me feel less alone. It’s safety in numbers,” she adds. “Sexual offenders tend to be, as we’re seeing, serial offenders, and that’s why it’s important to us to have a matching component.”

Judd was later one of the first women to name Weinstein, last October, along with fellow actors Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette and other celebrities whose names have now become synonymous with the #MeToo movement.

Dulany, who is suing Weinstein as part of a class action lawsuit of 10 accusers, says the other Weinstein accusers have been “really amazing” in supporting their work, with some donating to their GoFundMe campaign.

“We have all been supporting each other through our different endeavours.” she says. As a result, Voices in Action already has celebrity ambassadors, including Oscar-winning actor Mira Sorvino, who also accused Weinstein of harassment; actor and comedian Terry Crews; and actor Harold Perrineau.

The pair believe part of the appeal of their new platform is that it is led by victims. Since the women hadn’t been invited to participate in any of the early gatherings for Time’s Up, the industry support group formed by Hollywood actors in response to the Weinstein scandal, they felt they had to establish their own organisation.

“A lot of organisations in Hollywood are doing good things,” Barth says, “but they’re not necessarily survivor-run, and the people on their boards are in positions of power, which I think can deter victims from coming forward. At the moment we are self-funded, but we are reaching out to everyone at the top of our industry for support – those at Time’s Up, the highest level agencies and studio executives. We feel like it’s their responsibility to help support us financially, to keep our industry safe.”

Voices in Action is really the brainchild of Barth, who, when news of the allegations against Weinstein first broke, created the Twitter hashtag #WhoIsYourHarvey, to encourage people to name their alleged abusers. But having consulted with experts and lawyers, the pair agreed that individuals won’t initially be put in contact with each other for legal reasons.

“If they talk to each other, then their stories may be influenced before they go to the police or a lawyer,” says Dulany. Barth adds: “Connecting victims straight away is not safe. They could be accused of collusion or making up a story. So it’s smart and necessary to do this under confidentiality and privilege.”

Alex Little, who serves as the pro bono counsel for Voices in Action, says the organisation is using systems to ensure transmitted data is kept secure. The users who opt into the matching system will also be required to verify their identity. Barth and Dulany hope their idea will eventually be rolled out to other industries.

One common thing in sexual assault cases is that if people don’t report right away, it affects their cases later

“We want to best serve every victim coming forward,” Barth says, “and if we opened it up right away to everybody, then we wouldn’t have the resources to help them all. So we’re starting here and hoping to build it into an app.” Dulany adds: “We hope it will become a model for other industries. We would love that.”

Both women are keen to stress they are putting no pressure on victims to go public with their experiences if they’re not ready, but documenting abuse when it happens can be important. “One of the most common things we see in sexual assault cases is that if people don’t report right away, it affects their cases later,” Dulany says.

Barth continues: “So with our platform, you can report, it’ll go into our system and you get an email receipt that is time-stamped, which we’re finding can be a critical piece of evidence if you decide to press criminal charges. This allows victims to say: ‘I did report it, here is my evidence, I just wasn’t ready to come forward publicly then.’ This is what a lot of survivors feel.”

In an open letter, the pair recently wrote: “Think of how many victims could have been saved, how many serial predations could have been prevented and how many millions of dollars in legal fees could have been avoided if a matching site had previously existed.”

As Dulany tells me: “This last year has been such hard work, but it has been so worth it to be able to see this through to the end and to see it grow from here… It may sound cheesy, but we really feel like this is our purpose now. It’s our calling.”

Visit the Voices in Action GoFundMe page at gofundme.com/from-metoo-to-wetoo