Speaking to A Current Affair, in her capacity as a rape victim and domestic violence advocate, the writer described being sexually assaulted by "a person giving me a ride home from an acting class" 20 years ago.

"The one time I was raped was as typical as every stat you hear: someone you know and trust," she told Fairfax Media last year.

"It was by someone I trusted," she reiterated to Channel Nine on Wednesday.

She was held prisoner for "a night" before escaping and reporting the incident to police, where she felt she didn't receive the support she would have liked.

"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," she said.

While several women pressed charges, her attacker was eventually jailed for two years for just one count of sexual assault after a male friend testified against him.

"He was convicted because he had told one of his friends what he had done and his friend actually had the courage to actually stand up in a courtroom and explain that," she said.

"We needed the testimony of a man to put this man away and I think that tells us a lot.

"We need to listen and take it seriously all the way through the process, from that first interaction when we hear about it through to the institutional response from the courts to the sentencing. We need to take it seriously and sadly that's not always the case and the message that this sends is that violence is ok."

She added that it took her 15 years for her to trust people again, even though she has since experienced several other "violent episodes" over the years. The most recent was last year when she was attacked by a man in Sydney's CBD.

"It shattered my trust. It can shatter your trust in your own sense of judgment and sometimes that can be the most debilitating thing," she said

As well as writing, the doctoral candidate in the department of gender and cultural studies at the University of Sydney is now a patron of Full Stop, an fundraising initiative of Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia.

"Intimate partner violence is the leading non-disease related cause of death and disability for women in this country between the ages of 15 to 44," she said.

"This is killing a lot of people and I'm going to use my time on this earth 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."

Moss' interview on Wednesday coincided with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten calling for an emergency national crisis summit to tackle violence against women.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he believed developing a plan through a COAG process later this year would be the best way to tackle the widespread epidemic.

Violence claiming the life of another woman made headlines again this week after Canberra woman Tara Costigan was allegedly murdered by her estranged partner less than a week after giving birth to her third child.

She reportedly sought court protection from him the day before her death.

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