They Try to Kill Her – but She Keeps on Fighting for Women’s Land Rights

A South African women’s land rights activist has been working for over 40 years to help who she calls “family” – and now, she’s been nominated for a prestigious human rights award for her efforts.

Founder of the land rights group Rural Women’s Movement (RWM) and a finalist for the 2020 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, Sizani Ngubane has received more than her fair share of murder attempts: she’s been hit by a speeding car, stabbed with a knife, and struck with a gun – to name a few. She is currently in hiding in order to keep fighting for women’s land rights, with less risk.

“My dream is that one day KwaZulu-Natal will be like other provinces, where women’s rights are seen as human rights and women are given the same power over land that men are keeping for themselves,” says Ngubane, 74, who often fights for women’s access to land in the rural KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, where Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini currently controls 2.8 million hectares of land.

RWM not only campaigns for better legal protection of women’s land rights, but also finds new homes for evicted women and children, helps grow food for the hungry and sick, and more.