In the 1960s, he was a member of the military high command of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
Mavuso Walter Msimang[citation needed] was born in 1941 at in Edendale, outside Pietermaritzburg, and grew up around missionaries.
[3] MK was a banned organisation which worked to topple the apartheid government in South African from the 1960s through to the early 1990s, when the country transitioned to majority rule.
Here he met his wife, Ntombi, who was an accountant, and had three daughters, including the writer and political analyst Sisonke Msimang.
[8] From 1987 to 1991 he was the country director in Kenya for CARE Canada, and from 1991 to 1993 he was a senior project officer for UNICEF in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
[11] He was CEO at the State Information Technology Agency from October 2003 and 2007, before being appointed Director-General of the Department of Home Affairs in 2007.
[20] One of his daughters, Sisonke Msimang, herself a women’s rights activist, wrote a piece defending her father from the allegations and criticising the media and feminists for their reactions, saying that she was "saddened, but not surprised" by the latter.