NEW: From Gazankulu to the Pretoria High Court Chambers - how a rural girl became top legal mind

Forty years ago, Gandlanani in the former homeland of Gazankulu was a village where girl children were not schooled, married off at thirteen and subjected to extreme poverty.

But there were exceptions, like Nana Makhubele who last year became the first black African woman to chair a society of advocates in South Africa.

Though Makhubele knew the struggles of poverty very well, her mother and a fortunate series of circumstances set her on another path.

“Being a girl and depending on how soon you reached puberty, you will undergo a compulsory female ritual. We [call it] uKomba. It's like a female version of the male circumcision. We don't go to the mountains, [uKomba] happens in the families," Makhubele explained the tradition of her childhood home.


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