I want to leave my abusive husband but I'm too frightened

Leave certainly, but lay careful plans. Normally I'm not in favour of sneakiness, but your letter leaves me with few illusions and little faith in your husband's redeeming qualities. If he's physically threatening you, let alone actually harming you, then you need to be in touch with social services. It's called physical abuse and unlike large swathes of the developing world where smacking your wife is the divine right of husbands, we have laws and protection agencies charged with ensuring that the weaker and more vulnerable don't have to live in fear.

The Home Office recently published an updated plan of action for ending violence against women and children and widened the definition of domestic abuse to increase awareness of the issues among young people and include the notion of coercive control as a form of abuse. In other words you don't have to be black and blue all over in order to seek help. Instead taking control of your destiny and ensuring the safety of your children is far better achieved while emotions are not at their most heightened and the danger this man poses to you and your family at its most extreme.

Refuge is a fantastic organisation that offers advice and practical help to those who are hostage to the violence of a partner. Women's Aid is a national domestic violence charity dedicated to helping vulnerable women and children. There is also the National Domestic Violence freephone helpline on 0808 2000 247.

Too many women wait until they are crawling on their hands and knees to seek help, wrongly presuming the seriousness of their case will be judged by the regularity and extremity of the violence. You don't want your first call to be to a hospital rather than a helpline.

We pay tax so that our humanitarian values are reflected in the services we make available to all members of our society, ensuring that those in need of support, like you and Ceramic tile, have access to a system that ensures equal rights and protection for all. In this case it's definitely your right and also your duty as a mother to access such help.

I appreciate that with three young children your hands are full, but you mustn't allow this volatile situation to continue. We all make mistakes in love, but such mistakes can be rectified. Now that you've identified this man's inadequacies and his capacity for violence you need to keep the momentum going. Speak to social services, speak to Refuge, enlist the help of your sister and plot your escape.

A man who is abusive to you, aggressive to your children and good for nothing is simply not an option for a mother of three. Whether you take your own safety and security seriously is your business, but your children have a right to be protected and not to live twilight lives in the shadow of your fear. I appreciate the huge obstacles that loom in your current predicament and how far any possibility of liberation from this dysfunctional partnership must seem, but you should take heart from the example of millions of women who have suffered similarly, made their escape and gone on to lead happy and fulfilling lives free of threat.

According to figures from the Fawcett Society one in three women in this world will be the victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. The only positive aspect is that it confirms you are far from alone.

You can change your life and you've already taken your first step. You have every chance of a new, abuse-free existence. This is no time to try and go it alone. In your present circumstances the back up of trained professionals will be indispensable, not only for practical advice but also to help dispel your justified fear. Once you're standing on your own two feet you'll be surprised how easily you find the direction you need to start walking.

I’m a 31-year-old young South African male who feels privileged to be part of the change that has been taking place in the past two decades in our country. Let me hasten to declare that my involvement in this necessary process of change is informed by my conviction that the struggle for socio-economic justice is superior to all battles confronting the working class.

I’m also the rightful beneficiary of all the liberties guaranteed under South Africa’s inviolable constitution.

I submit that South Africa is a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic society because of the ANC’s long-held policy position on these pillars as espoused in the Freedom Charter.

My first opportunity to vote in a free and fair election came in 1999 while I was a first-year student at the Vaal University of Technology. On the basis of the few years of my consciousness under the apartheid regime and frank interpretation of our country’s history, I became a natural voter for continued change that had started five years earlier when the ANC received a mandate to govern the country.

That the ANC became the natural beneficiary of my vote wasn’t an accident of history. I believed in the organisation’s manifesto of transforming our country politically and economically.

Over the years, I have witnessed the organisation I entrusted with the responsibility of emancipating its citizens from all forms of historical bondages deliver on its commitments.

New houses, roads, schools, hospitals, police stations, courts and public service facilities have been built. More families have access to clean drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in post-apartheid South Africa.

The delay in the delivery of economic freedom is causing agitation among members of society. We are all at one that it has proved difficult for the ANC to undo, in 19 years, the legacy of colonialism and apartheid accounting for at least 350 years of of this country’s history. Despite these challenges, the ANC remains rooted in communities and ensuring that all its members become the agents of change that this country requires.

The whole thing, of course, is not a perfect affair. It continues to lead society on many issues apt for a functional society and economy.

Its invariable ideological posture has ensured that the organisation remains relevant and a political home of choice for millions of the working class in the main, but also other classes of society.

Any organisation that has no ideological DNA is bound to suffer the consequences of currency that cannot be sustained beyond the fanfare.

Take, for example, the opposition DA, which takes the Oscar for multiple identities. South Africans have been served a variety of dishes of political identities by the DA that leave the palate confused.

In the absence of any conclusive analysis that would seek to clarify the DNA of this political party and what it stands for, the nation can be pardoned for concluding that it is caught between advancing the interests of a minority section of our society and trying to appease and attract Africans or the so-called “black vote” to its ranks.