Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Winnie Mandela
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
South African politician, anti-apartheid activist, and second wife of Nelson Mandela.
Born in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1958.
In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial, she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail.
During that period, she rose to prominence within the anti-apartheid movement.
She was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured, subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.
In the mid-1980s, she exerted a 'reign of terror', and was at the centre of the violence in Soweto. This led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and a rebuke by the ANC in exile. During this period, her home was burned down by residents of Soweto.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, and the couple separated in 1992. They divorced in 1996.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by Nelson Mandela's government to investigate human rights abuses found that she had been "politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club", her security detail. She endorsed the necklacing of alleged police informers and apartheid government collaborators, and her security detail carried out kidnapping, torture, and murder, including the killing of 14 year old girl Stompie Seipei. Madikizela-Mandela was convicted of her kidnapping.
As a senior ANC figure, she took part in the post-apartheid ANC government , although she was dismissed from her post amid allegations of corruption.
In 2003 she was convicted of theft and fraud, and she temporarily withdrew from active politics before returning several years later.