For Umdloti-based attorney Sarah Bond, protecting people and animals is more than a professional calling. It’s something woven into who she is – shaped by a childhood fight for survival, her own experience of abuse, and an instinctive fierceness that comes out when someone vulnerable needs her in their corner.
What strikes you first about Sarah is her warmth. She is kind and open, the sort of person who is genuinely proud of her mentees’ achievements, gives her time generously and cheers others on without a hint of competitiveness. But spend a little time with her and another side quickly emerges: a fierce determination driven by a desire to protect and prevent suffering.
A childhood rebuilt from scratch
Sarah grew up in Glenwood, went to Durban Girls’ High School, and studied Public Relations through Varsity College and law at the University of the Free State. What that tidy CV doesn’t show is the three years she spent, from age three, in and out of hospital being treated for leukaemia, or the stroke that followed soon after, brought on by complications from a routine biopsy.
The stroke took her right side and much of what a five-year-old takes for granted. She had to relearn walking, talking, eating, spelling and basic numeracy, this time favouring her left hand. “No one ever thought that I would be able to do maths or spelling again,” she says. “But somehow I managed to. It’s like your brain sort of relearns and heals itself.”
Through it all was her mom – pregnant with Sarah’s youngest sister, already caring for a toddler, and somehow also a near-constant presence at her daughter’s bedside.
The making of a protector
If childhood illness taught Sarah what it meant to be fought for, adolescence taught her what it meant to fight for someone else. Her parents’ divorce during her high school years was bitter and drawn-out, and as the eldest of four daughters, she found herself stepping into a role she’d occupy for the rest of her life. “I felt like I’d always filled this role of protector,” she says.
She’s now a litigation attorney at her own practice, Bond & Associates in Umhlanga. “Now, I’m in a position that enables me to assist women who are in similar circumstances to those my mom was in,” she says.
At 19, while a university student, Sarah was in an abusive relationship serious enough to require a protection order – an order that didn’t stop her ex from breaking into her flat one night while it sat, useless, in a cupboard. “I couldn’t even reach my phone,” she says. “He was already there.”
It’s why, when frightened women sit across from her desk now, she doesn’t just understand their fear in the abstract. “I can empathise. I know exactly how it feels” she says. “I can say to them, I’ve been where you are. You’re going to get through this.”
A lion in the courtroom
Sarah’s grown frustrated with how little the country’s domestic violence legal system actually protects, having watched clients get orders that arrive too late or go unenforced or become redundant when enforcement comes too late to protect victims of abuse. That frustration led her to the Rise Up Movement, where she’s helping develop a safe-house model built from repurposed shipping containers, offering secure refuge, medical care and counselling for women and children fleeing abuse.
It’s also why she competed in Mrs South Africa last year – not for the crown, she says, but for the platform to raise awareness around gender-based violence and animal welfare, a cause she’s championed since a childhood, growing up in a household full of animals. “The platform gave me the opportunity to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. I’m very idealistic,” she admits. “I just want to create positive change.”
For someone whose life has involved so much fighting, Sarah has retained an extraordinary softness. The difficult experiences she has lived through haven’t hardened her. They’ve sharpened her sense of empathy – and given her an even stronger reason to stand up for others.
Details: www.bondlaw.co.za; IG: @legally blonde_za
Photos: Conway Photo and Film SA | Hair: Heidi Houstan | Makeup: Zai Shaik Yusuf
