Sizani Ngubane, Land Rights Legend, Dies Alone as COVID-19 Exposes Systemic Failures

When Sizani Ngubane passed away in her Hilton home on December 23, 2020, no one knew she’d been dead for nearly a week. The 74-year-old icon of rural women’s rights in KwaZulu-Natal died alone — feverish, delirious, and abandoned — while her son, Thulani Ngubane, fought for his own life in a hospital with COVID-19. The official death certificate says December 22. Her son insists it was December 14. The truth? She was likely gone for days before anyone found her. No signs of break-in. No theft. Just silence. And a system that failed her at every turn.

A Life Built on Land, Not Legacy

Sizani Ngubane didn’t just advocate for women’s land rights — she built a movement from the dirt up. In 1990, she founded the Rural Women's Movement (RWM), a grassroots force that grew to include 501 community organizations and 50,000 women across KwaZulu-Natal. This wasn’t charity work. It was rebellion. At a time when customary law stripped widows of their homes and daughters of inheritance, Ngubane stood in courtrooms, village halls, and parliamentary committees demanding change.

Her influence shaped the South African Constitution. She helped draft the section on rural and indigenous women’s rights — the very clause that now protects millions. In 1991, as Provincial Coordinator of the South African Women’s National Coalition, she pushed for the Women’s Charter for Effective Equality. By 2004, RWM led the legal battle that overturned the Communal Land Rights Act, declaring it unconstitutional for entrenching gender bias. In 2020, just weeks before her death, she was in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, challenging the Ingonyama Trust — a colonial-era entity that holds 2.8 million hectares of land in trust for Zulu monarchs, often at the expense of women.

Decades of Danger

Ngubane’s activism didn’t come without cost. In March 1993, 150 men from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), armed and backed by police, stormed her home. Her brother — set to turn 40 in two weeks — was shot dead in front of her. She survived a stabbing. A gun was pressed to her temple. A car deliberately hit her. Her house was broken into monthly from 1998 to 2010. After her 2000 home was vandalized, she and her family fled for safety. She was a target because she threatened power. Because she made women see they had rights — and the courage to claim them.

In 2018, she was named NGO CSW Woman of Distinction. In 2020, she was a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award — the human rights world’s Nobel Prize — alongside Yemeni lawyer Huda Al-Sarari, who ultimately won. Ngubane didn’t win the trophy. But she won something deeper: the unwavering loyalty of tens of thousands of women who called her uGogo — grandmother, protector, warrior.

A Death No One Came to See

When Thulani Ngubane, hospitalized with severe COVID-19, called his mother repeatedly in mid-December, there was no answer. He begged local police and health officials to check on her. Nothing. When her body was finally discovered, the South African Police Service in Hilton recorded the death as occurring on the day it was reported — despite clear signs she’d been dead for over a week. The medical examiner delayed the autopsy. The Department of Home Affairs stalled the death certificate. The family couldn’t bury her for weeks.

"It was like they wanted her to disappear," Thulani told Witness.co.za. "They didn’t care that she was a national figure. They didn’t care that I was dying too. We were just another statistic." The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution called her death "very sad among many sad days." But for those who knew her, it was more than sad — it was symbolic. A woman who fought for dignity in life was denied it in death.

What Happens Now?

The Rural Women’s Movement didn’t collapse with Ngubane’s passing. If anything, it’s louder. RWM continues to challenge the Ingonyama Trust. They’re training new leaders — women who’ve lost their land, their husbands, their children to poverty and violence. They’ve taken over her office. They’ve hung her photo above the desk. "We can’t imagine the movement without her," their Twitter statement read. "But we won’t let her fight alone." Thulani is now preparing to sue the provincial Department of Health and local police for negligence. He wants accountability — not just for his mother, but for every elderly person abandoned during the pandemic.

Why This Matters

Sizani Ngubane’s death wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a mirror. It showed how easily systems fail those who’ve spent their lives fighting for them. She spent 40 years demanding that the state protect women’s land rights. When she needed protection most, it turned away. In a country where 60% of rural women still lack secure land tenure, her death is a warning: without legal and institutional support, even the fiercest advocates can vanish without a trace.

Legacy in the Soil

Ngubane didn’t leave behind mansions or bank accounts. She left behind seedlings. Women who now own land. Girls who know they can inherit. Communities that feed themselves. A movement that refuses to be silenced.

In her final years, she planted vegetables on communal land for widows and orphans. She didn’t eat first. She fed others. When she died, the soil she tilled still held her fingerprints.