Human Rights
Will gold miners get justice?
In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 9 October 2015
Spotlight on social grants: The good, the bad and the confusing
For millions of South Africans, the monthly social grants -- mostly pensions and child support -- are the difference between survival and starvation.
GroundUp Staff
News | 7 October 2015
Spotlight on social grants: Sassa’s bid to stop illegal deductions
Every month, money is deducted from the accounts of hundreds of beneficiaries of social grants without their permission. The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) is working to get the money refunded. But according to the Black Sash, the system Sassa has set up does not work.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
Spotlight on social grants: Net1 - the company that runs the grant payment system
The South African government’s massive social security payment system is managed by a subsidiary of Net1, a company listed on stock exchanges in the United States and Johannesburg.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
Spotlight on social grants: How grants are used to back loans
Some social grant beneficiaries are so deeply in debt that much of each month’s grant goes to paying back a loan.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
Spotlight on social grants: How the system works
It’s 6:30am on a cold Wednesday morning and about 50 people, mostly women with babies, are already queuing outside the South African Social Security Agency office in the Delft library to apply for their child support grants.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
Time to reposition one of Africa’s great debates: gay rights
Over the past few years, we have seen an explosion of arguments for and against gay rights in Africa. Those in favour of gay rights point out that they can help to protect sexual minorities by making discrimination illegal, in the process making societies more equitable. Those opposed to gay rights allege that homosexuality only arrived with Europeans, that gay rights are a threat to the African nation, and a threat to the heterosexual family.
Andrew Tucker
Opinion | 6 October 2015
Life-saving drug stopped by sole supplier
South Africa is running out of an essential medicine for treating very sick patients with tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant bacterial infections. Many hospitals are already out of stock.
GroundUp Staff
News | 5 October 2015
Stop hiding behind sub judice
"I can't comment - the matter is sub judice." This is the refrain beloved of senior politicians from Cyril Ramaphosa to Nathi Nhleko to Thandi Modise to Baleka Mbete to President Zuma himself when faced with a difficult question.
Leo Boonzaier
Analysis | 2 October 2015