This week Special Assignment investigates the vulnerability of children born from inter-marriages between South African and foreign nationals and the extent to which the gaps in the country’s border controls and the criminal-justice system allow children to be abducted, in these cases by their own parents. When the distraught parents featured in our…
FEW ISSUES in contemporary South Africa arouse as much emotion as "the land question". Given SA’s history, it is hardly surprising that land reform should generate so much political heat. Black South Africans were devastated by land dispossession and disparities in ownership. Today, land still…
Teenage alcohol abuse is at alarming rates in South Africa and there is no sign that the trend will decrease. If no drastic intervention is implemented to curb the problem, young people growing up in a country that has an entrenched culture of drinking like…
Die nuwe Wetsontwerp op Kopiereg hou omvattende onheilspellende gevolge in vir alle kunstenaars in Suid-Afrika en kom daarop neer dat ʼn lied soos Steve Hofmeyr se Pampoen eendag outomaties aan die staat gaan behoort as die sanger nie meer daar is nie, sê adv. Anton…
More than half a million disabled children of school-going age in South Africa cannot access any form of education, according to Human Rights Watch. This week on Special Assignment premieres Health-e News Service’s Legacy of Exclusion which investigates access to education for disabled children in…
Musina in Limpopo Province which borders on Zimbabwe is the scene of a kidnapping syndicate that robs, rapes and goes as far as to murder their victims. A Special Assignment investigation found that the victims are Zimbabweans hitch-hiking from the border into Gauteng Province. A…
I'm speaking as a person who was delegated by His Majesty the King along with Professor Otty Nxumalo and Inkosi Mavundla to issue a statement about what transpired at the Reed Dance over the weekend. Firstly I want to set the record straight about the…
“He asked why I am wearing guys’ clothes and I kept quiet… He became aggressive saying why don’t I want to answer him, he’s going to show me today that I’m a girl...” Lungile Dladla, a lesbian from Daveyton, recounts her rape ordeal at the…
Mothers of drug-addicted children often have to suffer the pain of seeing their children deteriorate and feeling helpless after having trying everything, to get them help. Often, these mothers also have to deal with angry communities as a result of their children’s actions. But, in…
“My brother was lying on the floor. The blood was running out of him, spreading…” This is how 13-year old “Tapiwa” recounts the murder of his older brother by two youths from Alexandra Township, north of Johannesburg. The teenager still lives in fear and is…