Miss New Zealand 2020 - ‘My Scars Tell My Story'

The Northland beauty bravely opens up about her struggles with self-harm after suffering childhood sexual abuse

- Cloe Willetts

When Sydney Batters walked out onto the stage under the gleaming lights of the Miss Far North pageant three years ago, she bravely took in the sight of a crowd full of faces. Then her mind raced to the fresh, self-inflicted scars lining her honey-coloured skin, wondering if people could see them.

That evening, Sydney took out second place at her debut beauty pageant and scored the People’s Choice Award. This year, the Auckland-based nursing student, 19, won the coveted title of Miss New Zealand 2020 – still bearing the scars she now refers to as her “story”.

‘I’m proud of what they represent and how far I’ve come’

“I used to look at my scars and think it meant I was weak, but now I’m proud of what they represent and how far I’ve come,” she tells Woman’s Day, publicly opening about the anxiety and depression she lived with for years following childhood sexual abuse for the very first time.

It’s taken a lot of work with mental health professionals for Sydney to become this poised woman wearing the crown.

The spiral-haired beauty first got into pageants at 16, admitting, “I didn’t actually like the idea of them because it wasn’t really my thing, but my mum told me I’d go a really long way.”

Sydney, who grew up in Kaeo, a low-socioeconomic township in the Far North, near Kerikeri, fought back and forth with her mother about entering.

“Then one day she took me to rehearsals, gave me a pair of shoes and said, ‘Go inside – you’re going to compete in this pageant,’” laughs Sydney, who says being thrown in at the deep end was the best thing that could’ve happened.