The rape survivor who continues to inspire
ALMOST 25 years after Alison Bothawas raped, disembowelled and strangled, she is still continuing in her quest to be an inspiration to 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 currently doing a lot of presentations around the country – I really love this time with all the ladies.”
Botha said while what happened to her does go with her, it is years later, and life does go on. “While it is part of my life, it is not every part of my life.”
After her horrific ordeal, Botha’s career path changed. She was, seemingly, seen as someone who was willing to talk about what happened and how she survived. This prompted her career as an inspirational speaker.
“I always hope it brings some inspiration to people who have either been traumatised before or just inspiration in general in life that we are not just victims of circumstances that happen to us, but actually, we can choose how we respond. Being an inspirational speaker has definitely, on a personal level, helped me push myself. I have always valued myself, but never really pushed myself and believed in myself and what I can do – it has certainly given my life that sense of purpose.”
Botha has since written a book titled I Have Life, and a documentary called Alison was also made about her. She hopes to write another book soon.
Career-wise, she still conducting talks around the country and world. She told our sister newspaper, the Weekend Argus, she is busy at times, other times she is at home being a mom where she does all her admin. She is a single mom to two boys. “My boys fill my life, so I take my job as a mom very seriously.”
Speaking about how horrible it is to think that there are so many rape and abuse survivors out there, she said she would like to tell them not to see it as the end of their lives.
“See it as an incident that has happened, a horrible incident agreeably. If anything happens to us in our lives, whether we are retrenched from our jobs, whether we lose a loved one or become a victim of crime.
“We need to accept that those things will change us, but we define how that change goes. Whether it’s going to be positive or negative. There is always a possibility of being positive about it. Say, I can be bigger than this, I am not going to let this take the rest of my life.”
Botha said that it’s imperative to start at ground roots to educate girls and boys on how to behave towards women.
She added that they need to understand what equality means, not only in the racial sense but also when it comes to gender issues.
“We still need to work on that. Self-defence, ways of protecting themselves, need to be done at school level because only some people chose to learn this, but everyone needs.
Not only for criminal issues, but also so girls 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 be teaching the young girls at school level how to stand up for themselves, and how to value themselves.”
When asked whether she is always contacted by correctional services when the two men, who perpetrated the horrific assault on her, apply for parole, she said she is sometimes contacted, and will forever fight for them to stay in jail. Not only for what they did to her, but also for what they did to other girls.
“It’s something that we as the victims live with for the rest of our lives, and so too should the criminals. I think it would be hard to rehabilitate them back into society.
I sometimes need to remind myself regularly to actually contact the correctional services to find out where they stand with parole hearings.
“I always do make an application to the parole hearing when there is one coming up. Thank you. It reminds me to find out where things stand at the moment.”
Botha said she is blessed with a God-given strength that she nurtured.
“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 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 into my inner strength.”
The fact that many people who have survived crime as a result of hearing her story, or being moved by it, also gives her the strength to keep pouring out to other people, as she quickly gets filled up again by how much they appreciate it.
“Being an inspirational speaker has definitely helped me heal. Speaking about something that happened to you is a way of finding growth 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.”
shanice.naidoo@inl.co.za