Tara Moss kept it a secret for 20 years that she had been raped by “a friend.” The Canadian-Australian author and UNICEF ambassador talked about the incident to “A Current Affair” on Wednesday, Mar. 4 .

The 41-year-old spoke to Tracy Grimshaw as a domestic violence advocate and rape victim. She first talked about the rape in her book in 2014. She said that she had been sexually assaulted in Vancouver. It was a friend whom she trusted. Moss said that the man was giving her a ride home from an acting class when the incident happened.

Moss said that she had been held prisoner on that night. She eventually escaped and reported to police. According to her, she did not get the support she had expected. She eventually discovered that there were several other women who claimed to be victims of the same man’s assault.

"As time went on it became clear there were other charges that were put forward in the past and another several women came forward, there was about a dozen in total," Moss talked about the “friend” who was jailed for two years. However, he did not face the jail term for assaulting Moss. The man found guilty of rape against another woman a male friend testified against the man.

Moss said that the man got convicted because he had discussed the incident with one of his friends. Moss appreciated the man for standing up in a courtroom and explaining the incident. She said that it was significant to note that they required a man’s testimony to convict the accused.

Moss said that she could not trust people for the next 15 years. She said that she did suffer several other “violent” interactions over the years. She said that she had been attacked by a man in Sydney's CBD. Moss said that the incident had shattered her trust.

According to Moss, Australia has intimate partner violence as the leading non-disease related cause of death and disability for women aged 15 to 44. Moss said that she would spend the rest of her life to “change those statistics.” “Yes, that's an ambitious thing to say, there have been people working in this area for decades but, damn it, I'm not going to give up," she said.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@IBTimes.com.au