Isaiah 1:17 (NIV)
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
I was nearly raped by four men, cornering me like prey, dragging me into fear I can’t even fully describe. At the time when I needed safety, justice, and dignity, I didn’t just survive an attempted gang rape, I survived a double betrayal.
Because when we got to the police, they made us feel like we were the problem.
My brothers and partner, driven by desperation and love, searched everywhere for me. But instead of being helped, they were assaulted, handcuffed, and treated like criminals by the very officers who are paid to serve and protect. And as if that wasn’t enough, when my brother greeted an officer at the Maun Police Station, he was met with hostility, not empathy.
But the final slap came from a sergeant’s mouth, who looked at me dusty, disoriented, with soil in my hair and grass all over my clothes, and said:
“Since the perpetrators brought you back safe and sound, we have nothing to charge them with.”
Safe and sound? After being dragged, threatened, violated in every way except by penetration, I was “safe and sound”?
This is the justice we get? Let me ask again — WHO DO WE RUN TO?
When the law turns its back on victims, when the uniform meant to shield us becomes the very shield of impunity, where do we go?
This is not just my pain. This is a national crisis.
We are living in communities where trauma is inherited, where children grow up watching violence, silence, and shame, only to become perpetrators of the same cycles they were born into. They are products of neglect, and now we are being terrorised by their pain.
And when we cry out, the police mock us with indifference.
Enough is enough.
We need more than statements. We need more than empty uniforms. We need a system that sees, hears, and protects. We need Occupational Therapy, community healing spaces, and accountability at every level. Because there is therapy in doing, in rebuilding lives, in giving victims purpose again, in restoring a sense of safety.
And we need every woman, every survivor, and every family to know: your voice matters.
Let my voice be heard, not just for me, but for every woman who was told, “You look fine, so it wasn’t that bad.” For every family who was punished for caring.
And for every community that has learned to survive without ever feeling safe. This system must change, and it starts with us refusing to stay silent.
In that disheartening, dark moment, only God came through for me. I was seeking Him in the midst of it all, and He showed up with strength, clarity, and protection when no one else did.
