The minister of home affairs and the president of the ANC's Women's League, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, is one of the leading women in SA's political and governmental affairs.
Appointed a full member of the cabinet in 2004 (she was previously a deputy minister), Mapisa-Nqakula is one of a sizeable group who have won status and respect as leaders and benefited from President Thabo Mbeki's strong affirmation of women.
Though she has embraced several leadership positions since joining the ANC in exile in 1984, her role as minister of home affairs is without doubt her biggest challenge. Corruption and inefficiency plague this enormous department. Despite attempts to plug some of the biggest gaps and put measures into place to curtail criminal activity by officials, the public has yet to experience a turn-around in the services the department provides.
Immigration too, continues to be problematic, with too many undesirable immigrants getting in and too many desirable ones, with much-needed skills, being kept out.
Though reforming the department of home affairs is much like tackling a mountain, Mapisa-Nqakula at least has the energy and drive to take on the job. She is not one to be daunted by difficulty or to be scared of a fight.
As chairman of parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and later as chief whip - the two positions she held before becoming a member of the executive - Mapisa-Nqakula showed she has the guts to take on difficult problems and people without flinching. This, with her fierce loyalty to Mbeki, has made her one of his most trusted ministers and colleagues within the party.
Her background in ANC military and intelligence structures originates from her days in exile where she spent six years in the ANC's armed wing, under-going training in Angola and the Soviet Union. She then served as the ANC chief representative - the equivalent of an ambassador - to Angola before returning home in 1990. Her immediate task was to build ANC structures and she was appointed the national organiser of the ANC Women's League.
Like many exiled women, Mapisa-Nqakula has always been active in women's organisations as the fight for women's liberation was viewed as closely bound up with the fight for national liberation. Her election as president of the ANC Women's League in 2003 thus came as a special achievement. It was a far cry from her traditional rural childhood in the Eastern Cape where she grew up. She went to school in Lady Frere in the former Transkei and then trained as a primary school teacher at the Bensonvale Teachers College in Sterkspruit.
After graduation, Mapisa-Nqakula found herself in East London where she inevitably became involved in politics, founding a trade union for domestic workers. It was not long afterwards that she left to join the ANC in exile.
It is hard to speak of Mapisa-Nqakula without mentioning her husband, safety & security minister Charles Nqakula. This is not because she lives in his shadow, but because they are one of the most famous couples on SA's political scene. They have four children, the youngest of whom was very young when Mapisa-Nqakula was sent from Johannesburg to represent the ANC in parliament. Husband Charles, then a full-time member of the SACP and not a member of parliament, stayed behind in Johannesburg and the family insisted that everyone, including the youngest child, remain with him.
Mapisa-Nqakula says this was one of the hardest things she had to do.
