Her Camera Captures Courage
When Nobuko Oyabu snaps her camera, she captures courage in the face of fear.
Her focus is on the victims of rape.
Many of the casualties keep their horror secret for years. Until they meet Oyabu.
Through her lens, photojournalist Oyabu, 37, sees victims transform into survivors. That's the same journey she made after Aug. 9, 1999, the day she was raped.
"It's OK to express your emotions," Oyabu told IBD. "This seems to be a very simple thing. But many victims have been feeling for so long that they were not allowed to talk about how they feel and what happened to them because society and family members often expect them to be quiet."
Many opened up to Oyabu during her two-year trek through America and Canada as she took photos of 70 survivors of sexual violence.
The result is a photo exhibit, "Stand: Faces of Rape & Sexual Abuse Survivors," that is in its eighth year. She has displayed the shots at universities, galleries, churches and Capitol Hill.
Her art is part of her fight for justice. Oyabu testified in front of Congress about rape. She was featured on Lifetime TV's documentary "Fear No More." The Rape Crisis Center in Washington, D.C., gave Oyabu its Visionary Award in 2003.
One of Oyabu's black and white photos shows a middle-aged man weeping and pushing his hands and head against a door of an old wooden cabin at a campground. That's the place where he was sexually abused 30 years ago by a priest. The survivor, Arthur Austin, chose the location for the photo shoot.
Deep Cuts
Another photo features Lorrie Ann Valencia with a rose-shaped tattoo on her arm. In childhood, she was molested by her uncle and grandfather, then cut her wrists hoping to ease her emotional pain through physical pain, according to Oyabu's exhibit. The tattoo was a reminder not to hurt herself anymore.
Many people feel her pain. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, one in six women and one in 33 men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime in America. The network says only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail.
Oyabu's work gives victims a chance to feel a "sense of justice" that most never felt, said Dee Ann Miller, a writer who penned a book about being sexually assaulted by a fellow missionary while she and her husband worked in Africa.
Miller was the first survivor Oyabu photographed for the project, which she started in 2001. Miller said that when she got involved in the project, she felt serene and excited. "We didn't know where this was going, but I felt like a girl holding a bunch of balloons and letting go," she told IBD.
Oyabu said, "Many people tell me I'm brave. But bravery did not start my project." It came from a stubbornness that refused to let the rape control her life, she says.
Until the summer of 1999, Oyabu never imagined she could become a victim. She was a newspaper photographer at the Moline (Ill.) Dispatch after graduating in 1995 from Chicago's Columbia College. She had arrived from her native Japan in 1990 at age 19, filled with dreams and ambition.
That night in August 1999, after covering a golf tournament, she was sleeping in her locked apartment. A former neighbor broke in and threatened to kill her if she screamed. When the man left, she dashed to a neighbor for help.
Police caught the rapist in three days. With strong evidence against him and a prior criminal record, the offender was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Oyabu later learned that such a long sentence is rare for rapists.
After that night, Oyabu sank into a hellish state. Nightmares and panic attacks hit her day and night. Depression shut down her emotions. She was living in fear.
To escape, she moved to Nebraska and started at another newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald.
Even a full year after the crime, "I was still trapped in a world filled with constant fear, and the trauma changed who I was," Oyabu said.
One rape survivor has said: "The rapist gets several years in prison, but the victim gets life."
That's how Oyabu felt.
As she reached out to Miller and other survivors for help, a message from William Barlowe, pastor of Grace Apostolic Church in Omaha, woke her up: "You can be either pitiful or powerful. You can also choose to be better rather than bitter."
For Oyabu, the daughter of a pastor in Osaka, Japan, this lift from the church felt like home.
To face the fears, Oyabu wrote a letter to the rapist. She related to him how the night changed her completely, that she even contemplated suicide but decided to stand up.
The moment she mailed the letter, she noticed her smile. That was an expression she had lost after the rape. Now suddenly she couldn't stop laughing. "People must have thought I was crazy," she said.
While working at the Omaha paper, Oyabu suggested doing a photo story about rape survivors who were willing to talk -- including her. But Oyabu couldn't get her editor's support for the piece. The paper refused to name rape victims.
"Can it be a survivor's choice to speak publicly?" she appealed.
The answer again: no.
So she posted a note on Advocate Web, a site that supports people who have been raped. She asked if any of them wanted to be photographed by her. From the responses, Oyabu learned anyone could be a victim, no matter the race, age, gender, profession and income level.
Oyabu spent all of her savings -- $40,000 -- and traveled to meet 70 victims, ranging in age from 14 to 70. Before each photo session, she would sit with the person and listen.
"I am not a counselor. I'm a photojournalist," she said. "Yes, it's impossible for me not to become emotional about the events that the victims went through. But when I look through my lens, I'm not overwhelmed by their emotions."
As her "Stand" project grew, Oyabu resigned from the paper in Omaha and became a freelance photographer. Still living there, she devotes many hours to the project.
Kelly McBride, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism center, wrote: "Oyabu has succeeded where her profession has failed. She (has) told the truth about rape."
Coming Back
In 2007, Oyabu's book "Stand" was published in Japan. She went there for a lecture tour to promote the book, bringing her husband, Patrick McNeal, and their 3-year-old daughter, Ellica.
During the trip, a critic said Oyabu was so upbeat she didn't seem like a rape survivor.
"What is a rape survivor supposed to look like?" Oyabu told IBD. "Do I have to be depressed all the time?"
She wanted to show the public that survivors have a right to be happy. "I have a daughter. I cannot be consumed by anger," she said.
In hopes of enlightening rapists, Oyabu plans to open photo exhibits at prisons in the U.S. and Japan.
"I want offenders to see those faces," she said. "If offenders don't face the reality and their own problems, nothing will change."
