Sally Hayfron

Sally Mugabe (nee Hayfron)
after a state visit to the United States in 1983
First Lady of Zimbabwe
In office 31 December 1987 – 27 January 1992
President	Robert Mugabe
Preceded by	Janet Banana
Succeeded by	Grace Mugabe
Personal details
Born	Sarah Francesca Hayfron 6 June 1931 Gold Coast (now Ghana)
Died	27 January 1992(1992-01-27) (aged 60) Harare, Zimbabwe
Cause of death	Kidney failure
Political party	ZANU PF
Spouse(s)	Robert Mugabe
Relations	Mavis Hayfron (mother), John Hayfron (father), Esther Sophia Hayfron (twin sister), Jane Hayfron (sister), Isabella Hayfron (sister)
Children	Nhamodzenyika (1963–1966)
Occupation	Teacher
Religion	Roman Catholic

Sarah Francesca (Hayfron) Mugabe (6 June 1931 – 27 January 1992), known as Sally Mugabe, was the first wife of Robert Mugabe (President of Zimbabwe) and the First Lady of Zimbabwe from 1987 until her death in 1992. She was popularly known as Amai (Mother) in Zimbabwe.

Born in 1931 in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), then a British colony, Sally and her twin sister, Esther, were raised in a political family, which was part of the growing nationalist politics in the colonial Gold Coast. She went to Achimota Secondary School, she went on to university to study before qualifying as a teacher.

She met her future husband, Robert Mugabe, in the Gold Coast at Takoradi Teacher Training College where they were both teaching, and went with him to Southern Rhodesia, where they were married in April 1961 in Salisbury.

A trained teacher who asserted her position as an independent political activist and campaigner, Hayfron demonstrated this activism as early as 1962 when she was active in mobilising African women to challenge the Southern Rhodesian constitution. This resulted in her being charged with sedition and sentenced to five years imprisonment, part of which was suspended.

In 1967, Sally went into exile in London, and resided in Ealing Broadway, West London; her stay in Britain was financed, at least in part, by the British Ariel Foundation. She spent the next eight years agitating and campaigning for the release of political detainees in Rhodesia, including her husband who had been arrested in 1964 and was to remain incarcerated for ten years. Their only son, Nhamodzenyika, who was born in 1963 during this period of detention and imprisonment, would succumb to a severe attack of malaria and die in Ghana in 1966. Mugabe was prevented from attending the burial of his son. Her father died in 1970.