Madikizela-Mandela was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured,[7] subjected to banning orders, and banished to a rural town, and she spent several months in solitary confinement.

[8] In the mid-1980s, Madikizela-Mandela exerted a "reign of terror", and was "at the centre of an orgy of violence"[9][10] in Soweto, which led to condemnation by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa,[11][12][13][9] and a rebuke by the ANC in exile.

[3][4] Her biography Winnie Mandela: A life was written by Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob and published in 2003[24] Madikizela-Mandela's Xhosa name was Nomzamo.

She organised a creche with a non-governmental organization, Operation Hunger[44] and a clinic in Brandfort with Dr Abu Baker Asvat, her personal physician,[45] campaigned actively for equal rights and was promoted by the ANC as a symbol of their struggle against apartheid.

In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, outgoing President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC had created for Nelson and Winnie Mandela, as representative symbols of the brutality of apartheid: In the context of the global struggle for the release of political prisoners in our country, our movement took a deliberate decision to profile Nelson Mandela as the representative personality of these prisoners, and therefore to use his personal political biography, including the persecution of his wife, Winnie Mandela, dramatically to present to the world and the South African community the brutality of the apartheid system.

"[50][10] Further tarnishing her reputation were accusations by her bodyguard, Jerry Musivuzi Richardson, and others, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that she had ordered kidnapping and murder during the second half of the 1980s.

[53] During her banishment, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) had formed a mass-movement against apartheid.

[54] Living in Madikizela-Mandela's home, the putative "soccer team" began hearing family disputes and delivering "judgments" and "sentences", and eventually became associated with kidnapping, torture and murder.

[56][55] In 1988, Madikizela-Mandela's home was burned by high school students in Soweto, in retaliation for the actions of the Mandela United Football Club.

[57][54] By 1989, after appeals from local residents,[58] and after the Seipei kidnapping,[54] the UDF (in the guise of the Mass Democratic Movement, or MDM),[54] "disowned" her for "violating human rights ... in the name of the struggle against apartheid".

"[61] Sono and Shabalala's bodies were exhumed from pauper's graves in Soweto's Avalon Cemetery in 2013, by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing People's Task Team, having been stabbed soon after their abductions.

[9] On 29 December 1988, Jerry Richardson, who was "coach" of the Mandela United Football Club, abducted 14-year-old James Seipei (also known as Stompie Moeketsi) and three other youths from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn,[62] with Richardson claiming that Madikizela-Mandela had the youths taken to her home because she suspected the minister was sexually abusing them (allegations that were baseless[17]).

[73] However, at a press conference a few days after Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, Mufamadi denied the allegations in the documentary, stating that Helsinga's statements were false.

[77] In January 2018, ANC MP Mandla, Nelson Mandela's grandson by his first wife, Evelyn Mase, called for Madikizela-Mandela's role in the Asvat and Seipei murders to be probed.

[56] After the TRC hearings, Madikizela-Mandela had provided financial support to Joyce Sepei's family, and Seipei's home was furnished by the ANC.

[56] The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission (TRC), issued in 1998, found "Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the Mandela United Football Club" and that she "was responsible, by omission, for the commission of gross violations of human rights.

The TRC also found that she was responsible for the abduction of, and assaults on, Stompie Sepei, and that she had attempted to cover up his death by claiming he had fled to Botswana.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman of the commission recognised her importance in the anti-apartheid struggle but exhorted her to apologise and to admit her mistakes.

[93] During the 1990s, she associated with the Israeli mafia operating in South Africa, which was involved in extorting the local Jewish community, and other criminal activity.

[106][107] Madikizela-Mandela criticised the anti-immigrant violence in May–June 2008 that began in Johannesburg and spread throughout the country and blamed the government's lack of suitable housing provisions for the sentiments behind the riots.

[89][111][55] Despite her status as an ANC MP over much of that period, she largely associated with non-ANC figures including Bantu Holomisa and Julius Malema.

[112] The interview attracted media attention,[113] and the ANC announced that it would ask her to explain her comments regarding Nelson Mandela.

[2] In the lead-up to Madikizela-Mandela's funeral, in a politically fraught environment[55] soon after the ouster of former president Jacob Zuma,[56] Jessie Duarte, a senior ANC leader, warned critics to "sit down and shut up", with Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema saying that "anyone who accuses Mama Winnie of any crime is guilty of treason".

Planning for Madikizela Mandela's funeral was largely handled by her daughters and Julius Malema, and the ANC reportedly had to "fight for space" on the programme.

[119] Malema also criticised members of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League for resigning in 1995,[90] because they regarded Madikizela-Mandela as a "criminal".

[124] Jennifer Hudson played her in Winnie Mandela, directed by Darrell Roodt, released in Canada by D Films on 16 September 2011.

Roodt, Andre Pieterse, and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life.

[125] The Creative Workers Union of South Africa opposed the choice of Hudson in the title role, saying the use of foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry.

In 2007, an opera based on her life called The Passion of Winnie was produced in Canada; however, she was declined a visa to attend its world premiere and associated gala fundraising concert.

Gugulethu okaMseleku, writing in The Guardian, stated that the film had returned Madikizela-Mandela to her rightful place, recognising her role in "the struggle" that, "for South African women ... was more fundamental than her husband's.