Babes Wodumo became the face of gender-based violence this week as the world marked International Women’s Day on Friday. But she is certainly not alone when it comes to high-profile women who have shared their harrowing experiences at the hands of their p

Here are extracts from books by presenters Tracy Going and Vanessa Govender

FORMER TV and radio news anchor Tracy Going detailed the abuse she suffered at the hands of her partner in 1997. Her book Brutal Legacy: A memoir was published last year by Jacana Media.

“I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through,” he said, tilting his head. “Is there any chance of us getting back together?”

I was quiet.

“Please give me another chance.” I said nothing as I absorbed his now familiar words.

“Don’t make me beg… But I’m asking you to give me another chance.” His voice a little harder, more determined. He was looking down at his feet.

I watched him. I wanted to see the truth in his eyes. I wanted to see whether I could believe him, whether I could trust that this time he truly meant what he said. I wanted to see my pain reflected there. But I couldn’t. He was still looking away.

Then suddenly something deep inside me shifted.

I was no longer lost in his dark, brown eyes with their thick, solemn brows. I no longer saw the definition of his chiselled jaw, his high cheekbones or the endearingly flattened tip of his broad nose. As his words melted and morphed, and the last five months moulded as one, his boyish nonchalance, his charm, dissipated.

All I could see were the lies, his disappearing for days without warning, the screaming, the threats, the terror, the hostage-holding, the keeping me up all night, the dragging me through the house by my hair, the choking, the doors locked around me, the phones disconnected, the isolation, the fear and the uncertainty.

I realised that it was never going to change. Never.

As I stood there in my own stillness, I knew that I had been holding onto something that never existed. I finally understood that this could no longer be my journey. I could no longer give credence and value to his distorted perspective.

FORMER Lotus FM presenter Vanessa Govender described the abuse and rape she suffered during a five-year relationship with a former Lotus FM jock. Her book Beaten but not Broken was published last year by Jacana Media.

With a lot of effort, I pushed myself up. My body ached. Every movement required mental coercion, my mind coaxing my limbs.

I stood, a little unsteady on my feet, and looked at him, searching his face for answers. He didn’t even have to say a word. A horrified look swept over his face as he drank in the damage. His unreadable, passive face changed within seconds.

Under different circumstances, I might have had a good chuckle at the swift change of expression. Except there was nothing remotely funny about the disaster my own face had become. But for those few seconds, while I stood before him, I remained blissfully unaware of the extent of the damage, of just how horribly my face had morphed into something utterly unsightly while my brain shut down and took me to that place of blackness.

He sucked on that cigarette like his life depended on it. I knew the signs all too well. His body language read like a cheap and predictable story.

He was agitated. It was stress, it was fear, and his calculating brain was in overdrive. I could see it. I could smell it and I could even hear him thinking above the sounds of the chirruping crickets and whooshing cars on the nearby road.

And in that instant came the realisation – it was like being awakened roughly from a deep sleep – of the horror that had happened to me.

I could tell he had a story ready. I think he was talking. I saw his mouth moving. I wasn’t hearing. I couldn’t hear above the anger, rage, fear and hate that flowed from my head and heart.

I walked to his car, my unsteady feet catching in my long denim skirt, my heart thumping furiously in my chest, in my ears. Could he hear it?

I lowered myself into the passenger seat of his BMW, every movement a shockwave of pain. He had followed me. Now I heard his whiney voice – this monotonous sound that assaulted my ears – but I was not listening.

I saw fear creeping in and nesting quietly in the corners of those cold, black eyes. Because this time there would be no hiding the evidence. He’d left scars and bruises before, but they were easy to hide. A little make-up or clever story and no one bothered to question what they were seeing.

But this time there was no plausible story that even I, a storyteller by profession, could come up with to explain these injuries. I think he realised his pernicious handiwork was going to expose him for who and what he really was. He was afraid for himself.

He had gone to great lengths to create the image of the consummate professional, the virtuous boyfriend – charming, debonair, every step, every word carefully chosen to portray himself as perfection personified – and now all of that could collapse.