What really matters to you? What brings you happiness? What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? What would you change in the world if you could? Which single word do you most identify with?
These are the five questions that 200 women from around the world were asked for a new book, 200 Women, published this month by Upstart Press. The book features both well-known and not-so-famous women from all corners of the globe, including a number of high profile New Zealand women. In this extract, Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas:
Louise Nicholas ONZM was born in Rotorua, New Zealand. A survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence, Nicholas is a campaigner and advocate for victims of sexual violence, liaising with survivors and their families, with communities and with police.
Nicholas is the co-author of Louise Nicholas: My Story, which she wrote with investigative journalist Phil Kitchin. In 2007, Nicholas was recognised as the New Zealand Herald's New Zealander of the Year, and in 2015 she was made an Officer of the Order of New Zealand for services to the prevention of sexual violence.
What really matters to you?
I advocate on behalf of survivors of sexual violence and their families, because what happened to me cannot be allowed to happen to anybody else.
I am a survivor of child and adult rape, perpetrated against me by members of the New Zealand police force from the age of 13 through to 19. For many years, I stayed silent; I covered up what had happened because I blamed myself and carried a lot of shame.
The policeman who hurt me from the age of 13 was a family friend and had a high standing in our community. I was absolutely petrified that people would find out, because I thought my family would hate me for it. I tried to take my own life - this wasn't about finding an easy way out, it was about protecting my family from the shame of what was happening to me. But I did find the strength to lay a complaint.
My family and I never had the criminal justice system explained to us, though, and not understanding what's happening with those processes can really tip a child survivor over the edge. I've been through the process of the criminal justice system seven times in my life; each outcome, bar one, was that the men who hurt me - and so many other victims as well - were acquitted. That experience defined me.
My anger grew in the face of this level of abuse; my contribution towards ending this kind of violence is to get out there and be the voice for those who stay silent.
Now I work alongside the New Zealand police. I help train them, and I support them in their work with survivors, particularly through the criminal justice system. That process is brutal, so I support survivors through the process. I try to empower them to find courage and strength - these qualities are in all of us, and we can find them if we're given an opportunity to do so.
Sitting in the witness box is not like retelling a story - rather, you actually relive what happened; a lot of survivors describe this as an out-of-body experience, because, in order to not be hurt again, you need to be outside of yourself.
In New Zealand, one in three women will be sexually abused before the age of 16; many of these women will never disclose their experiences. And, for those who do, it may be decades before they disclose what has happened to them. I try so hard to encourage and empower them. It's not about having to go through a process - it's not about having to go to the police or court - it's about empowering these women to be who they want to be.
And it's about the fact that their voices are important - no more silent survivors. Silence is a killer, on so many levels: the suicide rate of survivors is too high, and, when you sit with prisoners - peel back their levels of anger - often the root cause is that they, too, were subjected to sexual violence.
The most important thing is that children need to be encouraged to speak, especially within families; we need to ensure that they have a safe person to go to if anything bad happens. A lot of my survivors - especially the young girls - quite often say, 'I don't want him to go to jail; I just want him to stop hurting me.'
That's all they want. So, it's about helping them navigate their pathway to healing and showing society that victim blaming is unacceptable. People don't necessarily speak out straight away and society needs to not judge them for that; society just needs to be willing to listen.
What brings you happiness?
My family; my children and my two little granddaughters.
The biggest joy I get is seeing a survivor come to the end of her journey. Having seen her at her darkest, having walked alongside her through whatever she's going through, it really is like how human beings slowly stood up to walk in the evolution of man! That's what I see in the survivors I work with - that moment when they hold their heads up high and are so darn proud of achieving something they never thought possible. And that thing is: 'I talked.' It's like going from the dark into the light, knowing that you have done all you can do for yourself. Once you walk into that light, all the evil, putrid, horrible stuff sitting in your soul is gone. That's something a person can only do for themselves; and that light is the beginning of a new life.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
It's when you are continuously banging your head against brick walls: the government's brick wall, and society's brick wall in the form of all this victim blaming, in the form of this rape culture we've got and the attitudes that come with it. Every day you're fighting to change attitudes, those rape myths like 'She shouldn't have been drunk' or 'She shouldn't have been wearing that.'
In actual fact, it's as simple as understanding that men just shouldn't rape. It's that simple. Just don't rape. Don't hurt our girls.
What would you change if you could?
I would have everybody personalise the experience of sexual abuse, because, when people understand the effect it has on a family and the potential effect it could have on them, that's when you start seeing change. We just need our men to understand that all you have to do is ask and listen - all you have to do is be respectful of us as women. We need to teach our young men that they don't need to hurt people.
Which single word do you most identify with?
Attitude. If you change attitudes, you've got a pretty cool world to live in.
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