‘Speaking about my suffering has helped me heal’

ALMOST 25 years after Alison Botha was raped, disembowelled and her throat was slit, she continues with her quest to inspire other women.

“I am commemorating Women’s Month by keeping myself busy and spreading the message to all women that they are valuable, that they are worthy, that they are capable of much more than they often believe. I am doing a lot of presentations around the country – I really love this time with all the ladies.”

Botha said although what happened to her in Port Elizabeth would remain with her, she was forging ahead with her life. “While it is part of my life, it is not every part of my life.”

After her terrible ordeal, her willingness to talk about what she had been through, and how she survived, led to a career as a motivational speaker.

She said she always hoped her talks would lead others who had suffered trauma to realise “we are not victims of circumstances, that we can choose how we respond”.

“Being an inspirational speaker has definitely helped me heal. Speaking about something that happened to you is a way of growing and learning.

“Just knowing that people are inspired, just knowing that good actually comes out of such a bad event, has outweighed the bad that happened then. I am grateful for the talks that I am able to give. Healing is ongoing.”

Botha has written a book, Have Life, and a documentary, Alison, has been made about her. She hopes to write another book soon.

Giving talks across the country and abroad kept her busy at

Itimes but, as a single mother, she was focused on caring for her two boys. “My boys fill my life so I take my job as a mom very seriously.”

She said children needed to be taught how to show respect to women, and should be given lessons in self-defence at school “not only for criminal issues but also so girls, after being in difficult or uncomfortable situations, won’t say, ‘I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to say no’.

“We must teach young girls at school level how to stand up for themselves, and how to value themselves”.

Correctional services officials contacted her when the two men who attacked her planned to once again apply for parole, and she would forever fight for them to remain in jail.

“It’s (such attacks) something that we as the victims live with for the rest of our lives, and so should the criminals.”

“I draw my strength from the Lord because He saved me that night. My mother was my rock when it happened, so I also get a lot of my strength from her – and from my kids. I don’t want bad things to happen to me but if they do I know I will be able to handle it by drawing from my inner strength.”

Alison Botha