Whilst his father was working temporarily there, Hain was born in Nairobi in what was then Kenya Colony, but he moved to the Union of South Africa when his parents returned about a year later.

Hain descends from his daughter, Sophia Stirk (née Southey), whose brother George helped to track and kill the Xhosa tribal chief Hintsa kaKhawuta (ca.

Aged 11 he was again awoken to be told his parents had been imprisoned for leafleting in support of Nelson Mandela's campaign[clarification needed]; they were released without charge after fourteen days' detention.

At 15, Hain spoke at the funeral of John Frederick Harris, an anti-apartheid activist who was hanged for murder for the bombing of the Johannesburg main railway station, injuring 23 people and killing one.

[4]: 17  Hain and his parents strongly opposed the bombing but stood by Harris and his wife Ann and baby son David, who were family friends.

As a result of security police harassment, Hain's father was unable to continue his work as an architect, and the family, deprived of an income, was forced to leave for the United Kingdom in 1966.

In 1971 director John Goldschmidt produced a film for Granada's World in Action programme featuring Hain debating "Apartheid in South Africa" at the Oxford Union.

In 1976 Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1975 bank theft, having been framed by the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) according to his 1987 book, A Putney Plot.

[11] In the 1970s, Hain was also Honorary Vice-president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality when he clashed with lobbying interests from the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

[17] In October 2000 he set up a war avoidance team to carry messages back and forth between himself and the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iraq, Tariq Aziz (a matter then confidential, which has since been put on public record in an interview with Hain by the Today programme).

Team members who travelled repeatedly to Iraq on Hain's behalf included William Morris, Burhan Chalabi (an Iraqi-born British businessman), and Nasser al-Khalifa (the then-Qatari Ambassador to the UK).

'[19] In 2001, Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry[20] before returning to the Foreign Office as Minister for Europe,[15] being sworn into the Privy Council the same year.

In June 2003 he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained the Wales portfolio.

[23] On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Prime Minister Tony Blair, also retaining his Welsh position.

He was responsible for negotiating the settlement which brought former enemies Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party into a power-sharing Northern Irish government from May 2007.

[27] In January 2008, The Guardian reported that Hain had failed to declare some 20 donations worth a total of over £100,000 during his deputy leadership campaign and would be investigated by the Electoral commission.

[30] On 24 January 2008, he resigned from several posts including his position as Work and Pensions secretary, after the Electoral Commission referred the failure to report donations to Metropolitan Police.

[36] On 27 March 2012, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC obtained leave from Lord Justice Higgins to bring proceedings against Hain and "Biteback Publishing" for contempt of court.

The trial was intended to take place on 19 June 2012[43][44] but the case was dropped on 17 May 2012 after Hain agreed to clarify comments to show he didn't question Girvan's motives or his handling of the judicial review.

[51] On 25 October 2018, he used parliamentary privilege in the House of Lords to name Sir Philip Green as the businessman accused of sexual and racial harassment by The Daily Telegraph.

[52] Hain is a remunerated adviser to the law firm acting for the alleged victims,[53] and Green subsequently announced that, due to this conflict of interest, he would lodge a complaint with the House of Lords.

On 28 October 2015, Hain was appointed to the Board of AIM listed fertiliser company, African Potash, as non-executive Director, but resigned in November 2017.

Since 2014 he has been chair of Trustees of the Donald Woods Foundation, a charity working in the poverty stricken Transkei, Eastern Cape, near Nelson Mandela's homeland.

Describing its mission as "to take forward the vision of HRH the Prince of Wales" and originally called "The College of Integrated Health",[64] several commentators, writing in The Guardian, The British Medical Journal and in the blogosphere, say this organisation is simply a re-branding of the Foundation.