A veteran of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of Democrats, she lived in exile from 1964 to 1990 after her husband, Ben Turok, was imprisoned for his activism.
[5] In 1965, Turok's husband was released on house arrest after serving a three-year sentence for his activities with Umkhonto we Sizwe, and the couple fled South Africa with their children to evade further police attention.
Turok and her family returned to South Africa in early February 1990, shortly after President F. W. de Klerk announced that his government would unban the ANC and SACP to facilitate negotiations to end apartheid.
[2] She joined the ANC structures that were being re-established inside the country after the party's return to exile,[6] and she publicly advocated for women to participate in the ongoing democratic transition, writing in the Star in 1992:Nowhere in the world have women been handed equality on a plate; everywhere they have had to fight for it.
Turok had three children – Neil, Fred, and Ivan – with her husband Ben, who died in December 2019.