Johannesburg – Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng has worked in various fields, including print and broadcast media.
She has also added the title author to her many accolades when she published the book, Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure in 2019, but when you ask her what she does, she simplifies it as “a general practitioner who has a focus on human rights and sexual and reproductive health”.
Mofokeng, who is the United Nation’s special rapporteur on the right to health, says most of her advocacy and human rights work has been outside South Africa.
“This is partly because of the structure of the global health and the political and funding systems,” she says.
“It means for one to be present in decision-making spaces and to dig for what is right, I’ve had to go to places like the US Senate and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. I also sit on international boards to bring about change in the sector.”
She currently works at Disa clinic, where she started in February.
Disa offers sexual and reproductive health services for men and women. Tlaleng is also active on social media, but her go-to platform is Twitter.
“I use it to communicate health information and to advocate for autonomy, dignity and equity in health broadly, but specifically sexual and reproductive health rights. “Twitter provides a platform to meet other activists across the world without having to travel to those regions, and has fostered lasting relationships,” she says.
She says she dreamt of being a doctor since she was eight.
She advises young people who want to follow in her footsteps to make sure that they do best in grade 11 as it is those results that they will have to use to apply for university.
But even if they don’t get accepted into medicine, there are other options, she says. “Keep an open mind about other options within the health sciences fields and if needs be, enrol and later exchange for medicine if you can’t get it first time.”
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