Charlene May is a South African lawyer who has spent the better part of the last 14 years practicing in the area of public interest litigation with a specific focus on access to socio-economic rights. May has experience litigating the common law of women in cases where their rights to housing, land and property were tied to their marriages entered into in accordance with the customary law. In addition, she has been involved in various cases related to land and housing rights, representing communities facing eviction, as well as restitution of land to communities that lost it as a result of forced evictions during apartheid. May has helped develop gender rights-based arguments to advance women’s right to housing.
May has been involved in advocating for the right to work and to choose one’s profession, on behalf of community health workers and sex workers. She has provided legal advice and opinions to national human rights bodies and trade unions. She has contributed to submissions to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on working conditions, and to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Poverty on the issue of caring for women. She has also participated in the preparation of several reports for the UN treaty bodies and the African Commission on the rights of women and transgender women; and in particular, on the lack of access to medical care and the safety and protection of the same.
May is on the board of directors of Sisonke, an association that defends the rights of sex workers in South Africa, and she is also a member of the board of Masibambane Social Housing Company, which facilitates social housing and strategic support projects.