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Long Form

Long Form Journalism by the Bhekisisa Team

The youngsters have successfully completed their initiation and are now regarded as men. The campsite where the initiates stayed is burnt after the initiation is completed.

The boys who lost their manhood

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During this initiation season, we look back at what happened in 2013 when bungled initiations cost boys their penises.
Tender delays have pushed a shortage of the popular birth control shot Nur-Isterate into its second year.

This popular birth control shot is out of stock for the second year running....

Women who have been forced to go without their usual birth control shot are now facing the consequences of months-long shortages.
Blood cancer patients such as Retha Wessels are forced to get a life-saving drug illegally to avoid paying thousands for it each month.

He would ransom the pills for something more precious than profit: His wife’s life

When a few months of treatment costs as much as a house, some patients are taking their lives and the law into their own hands to survive.
A teenager receives a vaccination

How this country is beating anti-vaxxers at their own game

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One in three French people think vaccines are unsafe. Here's how the country is fighting antivaxxers through social media.
From the informal market to booming business: Could this be the future of water?

Water in Ghana from pipe to packet: Is there a hidden cost to this...

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In a country where pipes can stop short of reaching home, cheap sachets of water sold on the street could be an unlikely solution, but at what cost?

Bosasa, Gavin Watson & the human cost of corruption

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Bosasa bribed its way into contracts. Meet the four-year-old who paid the price.
Sold on the idea: Asiphe Ntshongontshi used the family calendar to keep track of when she took the HIV prevention pill. She lives in Masiphumelele outside Cape Town close to a youth centre and clinic that dish out the tablet.

One she called the ‘minister of love’. The other? He was the ‘minister of...

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Since the country’s rollout, less than a quarter of people who’ve started taking the HIV prevention pill are young women — despite high HIV rates.
Man walking on a dirt road in Togo.

Doing the ‘tramadol dance’: What this latest music craze says about Africa’s pill addiction

Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt takes a look at the global sensation — the tramadol dance — that’s topping the charts in Africa’s effort to curb drug abuse.
Most medical aids won't cover a new

The WHO, the drug & women’s right to choose: The story behind dolutegravir

Take a look at the newest HIV treatment set to hit South Africa's shores in 2019.
Man in Ebola protection suit.

‘Most complex health crisis in history’: Congo struggles to contain Ebola

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Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak.

The magistrate’s tail: How these pets are helping child rape victims get justice

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In court, comfort for the tiniest victims of sexual abuse can come from the unlikeliest of places. “All rise,” a voice declares as the...
More than half of men in Diepsloot report having sexually or physically abused a woman in their lifetimes

Diepsloot: Where men think it’s their right to rape

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Crime stats released in 2015 reported a drop in rape cases, but experts say this is because fewer people are bothering to report rapes to the police.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize

Meet Zweli Mkhize, the man behind SA’s #COVID-19 response

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Can the health minister fix our health system and what will it take? Here’s what Mkhize’s character, views and his past experience as a doctor tell us.

Life on a hotter earth: Depression, drought & decolonising mental health

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As the climate crisis wears on, it's taking a toll on our mental health and indigenous knowledge systems may hold the key to helping us weather the storm.
​Acid victim Hanifa Nakiryowa founded the Center for Rehabilitation of Survivors of Acid and Burns Violence.

Acid attacks: ‘I didn’t have the money to buy justice, but I had brains...

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In the wake of acid attacks, victims — often women — can feel hopeless. Now, women around the world are fighting back.
Being bilingual is better for your brain. Now

Speak more than one language? This is what it does to your brain.

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Speaking more than one language could lead to better tests scores and even being a more empathetic person.