LOS ANGELES -- Internationally recognized campaign, Denim Day, turns 20 years old this year. The movement started two decades ago with the intention of raising awareness about sexual violence.

Patti Giggans, the founder of Denim Day, reflected on the success of the campaign at a recent sexual violence prevention event put on by Peace Over Violence at Union Station.

“There's been this consistent Denim Day, sexual violence prevention campaign for 20 years. We've been educating, challenging, and encouraging people to wake up. Learn the reality and the truth about sexual violence in all its forms. Please understand that no one deserves to be harassed, abused, assaulted, and raped, no one deserves that, no one,” Giggans said.

As the daughter of a survivor, Giggans is passionate about empowering others to speak up, that’s why she responded with such fervor to an Italian case in the 90’s which initially justified a woman’s rape due to the tightness of her jeans, asserting that the accuser must have helped the accused with the sexual act since the jeans would have been too difficult for him to remove on his own.

The women of the Italian Parliament protested the next day, with everyone wearing jeans. Giggans stood in solidarity with the statement, and started a trend that now reaches millions.

“I think the reason that it caught on is that something like that is very common. We wear jeans all the time, we love our denim jackets, everybody, all ages correct? It's like this idea of doing something very pedestrian, very ordinary, but combining it with something very serious and very significant as sexual violence. It just seemed to click with people,” she explained.

Officially, the campaign currently reaches over 12 million people, according to Peace Over Violence.

From Los Angeles to New York, and Mexico to Japan, wearing denim is a symbolic declaration that there is no excuse for  sexual violence.

“I was raised by a survivor and I could see the challenges that she had because of that as I was learning more about it as an adult. She was very strong and she wasn't just going to remain a victim. She went on a healing path for herself and that inspired me,” said Giggans.

She now hopes to extend that healing path for others.

“I think that every year that we do this, more people get engaged, more people get involved, and more people are changing their minds and questioning their older beliefs, their older misconceptions that they’ve had. So each year, I just get more re-inspired and I think it's fantastic that at least we have a path to make change” said Giggans.