Grant

Born in the South African city of Durban in 1941, this daughter of a bus driver was put through university thanks to donations from fellow members of the local Indian community. Graduating with a law degree, Ms Pillay became the first woman to establish a legal practice in South Africa's Natal province. "I had no choice," she told the BBC. "No law firm would employ me because they said they could not have white employees taking instructions from a coloured person." "I was representing men who were imprisoned on Robben Island along with Mandela," she said. "They had no right to legal representation or even to know the rules of the prison. I was told by their wives just how bad the conditions were." A successful appeal by Ms Pillay to the provincial court gave Nelson Mandela and his fellow inmates some very basic legal rights. Not surprisingly she soon found herself under constant surveillance from the security police.