Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya is a South African politician and former trade unionist who was the inaugural Minister of Women, Youth, Children and People with Disabilities from May 2009 to October 2010.
Pursuant to the 2009 general election, Mayende-Sibiya took up an ANC seat in the National Assembly and was appointed to the cabinet by President Jacob Zuma.
[4] During her presidency of Nehawu, Mayende-Sibiya was viewed as a political supporter of Zwelinzima Vavi, the controversial general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
First, she was elected to a five-year term on the SACP Central Committee at the party's 12th National Congress,[7] held in Port Elizabeth in July 2007.
[14] She left her Nehawu office in order to take up the seat; the presidency was filled in an acting capacity by her former deputy, Lulamile Sotaka, until Mzwandile Makwayiba was elected as a permanent replacement in October 2010.
[16][17] She was named as Minister of Women, Youth, Children and People with Disabilities, a new portfolio whose establishment was inspired by a resolution of the ANC's 52nd National Conference.
[20][21][22] At the end of the year, the Mail & Guardian reported that, though Mayende-Sibiya was influential in the ANC and SACP, her department lacked a clear programme and she had not yet consulted with women's groups in civil society.
[33] In August 2007, she spoke publicly about her experience with domestic violence in a former marriage, saying that she left her ex-husband in 1991 after he doused her in benzine and threatened to set her alight.