Maria Rantho (1953 – July 12, 2002) was a South African disability rights activist and politician. She was the first wheelchair user elected to the

National Assembly of South Africa The National Assembly is the directly elected house of the Parliament of South Africa, located in Cape Town, Western Cape. It consists of four hundred members who are elected every five years using a party-list proportional representation syste ...

Career

Rantho was working as a nurse when she survived a spinal injury in an automobile accident; she used a wheelchair afterwards. She co-founded and became chair of Disabled People South Africa, worked for the formation of the Disabled Women's Development Programme, and was a member of the

African National Congress Women's League The African National Congress Women's League (ANCWL) is an auxiliary women's political organization of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa. This organization has its precedent in the Bantu Women's League, and it oscillated from b ...

. In the restructuring of South Africa after apartheid, she was responsible for the disability desk in the Deputy President's office; her projects were later formalized as the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons. In 1994, Rantho was elected to the

, the first disabled member of that body. She was part of the team that drafted the disability policy passed by the South African government in 1997. She left Parliament in 1998 and worked at the Public Service Commission afterwards, until her death. She was deputy chair of

Disabled Peoples' International Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is a cross disability, consumer controlled international non-governmental organization (INGO) headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and with regional offices in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Afri ...

, and in that role made a presentation to the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995:

Personal life and legacy

Rantho died suddenly in 2002, at Pretoria. She was survived by a son, Mpho. The Maria Rantho Clinic in Soshanguve township near Pretoria is named for Rantho, and focuses on HIV/AIDS treatment, mental health, nutrition, and family planning. Filmmaker Shelley Barry ends her film "Taxi Wars" (2007) with a dedication to Rantho: ''"Dedicated to the spirit of South African activist Maria Rantho and to all comrades who still wheel the earth continuing their fight for our liberation."''Janice Hladki
"Social Justice, Artistic Practice and New Technologies: Gender and Disability Activisms and Identities in Film and Digital Video"
''Atlantis'' 32(2)(2008): 47.

References

External links

*Mpingo Ahadi Bugg
"Claiming Equality: South Africa's Disability-Rights Movement within the Nation's Struggle for Democracy"
(Yale University, PhD diss., 2001). *Stephen Buckley
"Africa's Disabled Organize to Fend Off Discrimination: Wheelchairs Finding Ways into Offices, Legislatures"
''Washington Post'' (April 21, 1997): A12. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rantho, Maria 1953 births 2002 deaths South African disability rights activists South African activists with disabilities Politicians with disabilities Members of the National Assembly of South Africa African National Congress politicians 20th-century South African politicians 20th-century South African women politicians South African women activists