Ruth Hayman was a lawyer and anti-apartheid campaigner. She was one of the first women in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 to qualify as an attorney. Through the Black Sash

Black Sash

The Black Sash was a non-violent white women's resistance organization founded in 1955 in South Africa by Jean Sinclair. The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government...

 organisation, Hayman offered free legal advice to many people, usually women, who had approached the Black Sash Advice Centre in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

, and often appeared herself in court to represent them. She also defended the anti-apartheid activists Walter and Adelaine Hain, parents of the British Cabinet Minister Peter Hain

Peter Hain

Peter Gerald Hain is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath since 1991, and has served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and both Secretary of State for...

.

Her activities brought her into direct opposition with the National Party

National Party (South Africa)

The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...

 government, and in 1966 she was served with a "banning order" under the Suppression of Communism Act

Suppression of Communism Act

The Suppression of Communism Act, No. 44 of 1950 was legislation of the national government in South Africa, passed on June 26 of that year , which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa and proscribed the ideology of communism, defined by the government as any scheme that aimed "at...

 and placed under house arrest.

"This banning was, according to Sydney Kentridge

Sydney Kentridge

Sir Sydney Kentridge KCMG, QC is a prominent South African lawyer and member of the English Bar. He played a leading part in a number of the most significant political trials in apartheid-era South Africa, including the Stephen Biko inquest in 1977.-Education:Kentridge was born in 1922 in...

,
'inexplicable save on the assumption that it was a punishment for her
professional work' ('Legal Aid and Political Trials' in Legal Aid in South Africa (1974) 215). The Transvaal

Transvaal Province

Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...

 Law Society refused to come to her aid. This sent out a clear message to attorneys."
(Dugard, J., 2004, p508)

Hayman moved to London, with her husband, Mervyn Lazar, in 1968, and was a pioneer in the field of teaching English as a second language. In 1977 she was one of the founders of the National Association for the Teaching of English as a Second Language to Adults. Now renamed as NATECLA

NATECLA

National Association for Teaching English and Community Languages to Adults is a British professional organisation of teachers of ESOL and what are known as "community languages" to adults....

. The Ruth Hayman Trust, set up in her memory, gives small personal grants to support the education and training of adults who live in the UK and whose first language is not English. http://www.ruthhaymantrust.com