MERLYN Nuttall, 29, today uses her real name and has her picture printed for the first time. Formerly known only as Miss X, she was snatched off a Brixton street in February 1992 by Anthony Ferrira, a convicted killer, viciously raped, brutally attacked, set on fire and left for dead. ‘I’m going public because I want to help people who’ve had similar experiences,’ she says. ‘I want them to have someone to relate to who looks well and is getting on with her life.’

She gave up her work as a fashion designer a year ago to write a book about her rape and fight for reform to help victims. She wants women doctors to attend rape victims, guidance on the Crown Prosecution Service and advice on criminal injuries compensation. In February, she addressed the Home Affairs Committee at the House of Commons, ‘lobbying for changes so the victim isn’t victimised by the system’.

She’s motivated by rising statistics on violence against women and by a need to find answers. ‘My work seemed so trivial compared with the issues which now dominate my life. Nobody tells you how to rehabilitate your life.’ She’s one of the campaigners de nos jours: the women who have turned adversity to advantage, transformed personal tragedy into something positive and found in their own catastrophe a cause. Open any newspaper and there they are – raising funds and awareness, presenting cheques, lobbying politicians and plugging away at injustices and anomalies in the law. These past few days have been typical for this high-profile, admirable band of tirelessly campaigning female fighters. Jill Saward, victim of the Ealing vicarage rape eight years ago, launched a £150,000 appeal for her brainchild HURT (Help Untwist Rape Trauma charity). Jayne Zito, whose husband Jonathan was murdered 14 months ago by a schizophrenic, appeared on television campaigning for improvements in mental health care on behalf of MIND and ‘holding Mrs Bottomley accountable for Jonathan’s murder’. Fran Davies, whose five-year-old daughter Laura died last year after a series of transplant operations, accepted a £200,000 cheque for the World Transplant Games.

Such behaviour is a predominantly female phenomenon. Fran Davies, although distressed, was determined to appear in public this week and did so with composure; but her husband Les left her five weeks ago, unable to cope any longer. Equally it was Diana Lamplugh, not her husband, who launched the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, named after their daughter who was abducted in 1986. From the moment Suzy disappeared and Diana stepped dramatically on to centre stage at the press conference, she has toiled hard to prevent further abductions.

The late Baroness Ewart-Biggs became an indefatigable proponent of reconciliation in Ireland and a staunch defender of the downtrodden after her husband was murdered by the IRA in 1976, and there are women like the three members of Women Against Pit Closures who did a sit-in at Parkside Colliery with Anne Scargill. But most recent campaigning women are middle class, with concomitant education.

Men playing a similar role are a strange breed: sometimes hysteria-led, other times obsessed by their grief. Consider the odd behaviour of so-called ‘tug-of-love father’ Peter Malkin who dealt with his sense of personal loss by abducting his 12-year-old son Oliver from his ex-wife’s home in France and leading him on a merry Egyptian dance. Or Ron Smith, father of Helen who died at an illegal drinks party in Jedda in 1979; still he pursues an obsessive quest to find out how she died and keeps her much forensically examined body, vital evidence to him that she was murdered, in a cask in a Leeds mortuary.

THEN there’s Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed at Lockerbie and who, motivated by outrage, has worked – again obsessively – to represent the victims. Or hotelier Peter Ward – father of Julie who was brutally murdered in the Masai Mara game reserve – who has been driven by a rankling sense of injustice and spent five years and £400,000 trying to prove misconduct. There are, of course, male campaigners who prove the exception. Take Colin Parry, father of the Warrington bomb victim Tim, who became an articulate spokesman about the unconscionable act. Or Senator Gordon Wilson, whose daughter Marie was killed by an IRA bomb in Eniskillen on Remembrance Sunday 1987, who met members of the IRA to try to persuade them to lay down their arms.

Dr Dorothy Rowe, psychologist and writer, says: ‘People behave like this because if you can put your experience to some good, then you can comfort yourself that it hasn’t been wasted. It’s easier for women, many of whom have worked in some voluntary capacity, to turn such experiences around and put them into a caring context.’

One can posit that women want conclusions and refuse to fade into obscurity or grieving despair; that they know that out of pain comes strength; realise such campaigning lends an enviable power and purpose to their lives; and find sweetness in the uses of adversity.

Jayne Zito, who works tirelessly to ensure her tragedy was not in vain, analyses her behaviour thus: ‘When Jon died, my life stopped. It’s about trying to take control of something you have no control over.’ She’s driven primarily by love for Jon but her media profile has been a way of dealing with grief. ‘Every time I go on television, I think Christ, they’re analysing me and saying, ‘Here’s Jayne Zito dealing with her grief.’ Taking control is a way of dealing with grief. But it’s just avoiding the inevitable – I’m never going to be satisfied because Jon’s not going to come home.’

Merlyn Nuttall recognises gender differences in campaigning behaviour: ‘Men get angry and want to hit out,’ she concludes. ‘Women are carers, and more logical about rebuilding things to make them better.’