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Unity Dow
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Unity Dow
Unity Dow (née Diswai; born 23 April 1959) is a Motswana lawyer, author, human rights activist and Member of Parliament for Kgatleng West since November 2024. She formerly served as a judge on the High Court of Botswana and in various Botswana government ministries. Born in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to a seamstress and a farmer, who insisted on their children obtaining an education, Dow grew up in a traditional rural village before modernisation. She earned a law degree in 1983 from the University of Botswana and Swaziland, though her studies were completed in Swaziland and University of Edinburgh, Scotland, as Botswana had no law school at the time. After her graduation, Dow opened the first all-woman law firm in Botswana and in 1997 became the first woman to be appointed as a judge to the country's High Court.
During her time in law, Dow was involved in three historic cases in Botswana. In 1992, she was the plaintiff in the landmark legal case, Unity Dow v Attorney-General, which ended the gender discrimination in the nation's nationality laws that had previously not allowed children to derive nationality from their married mothers. The case gained Dow international attention and sparked a wave of changes eliminating gender disparity in nationality laws across Africa. In 2006, as the presiding judge in the case of Roy Sesana and Others v. the Government of Botswana, Dow ruled against the government's actions to prohibit the Basarwa indigenous people from living and hunting on their ancestral lands, forcing them to resettle outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. She ruled that the government had to restore basic services, allow the Basarwa to return to the land and obtain hunting permits, and pay damages to those who had been forcibly relocated if they chose not to return. In 2014, Dow served as legal counsel for LEGABIBO (Lesbians, Gays & Bisexuals of Botswana) in their case to register their organisation with the Department of Civil and National Registration and successfully received a ruling for the government to allow the organisation to be registered.
Dow was first elected to the National Assembly in 2014, when she was nominated by President Ian Khama as a special elected member of parliament. She was first appointed as an Assistant Minister of Education and in 2015 became the Minister of Education and Skills Development. Subsequently she served as Minister of Basic Education, Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, and Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation, before becoming a backbencher in 2020. She has served on numerous international commissions and committees, evaluating the application of laws affecting the human rights of people in Kenya, Palestine, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. In 2000, Dow began publishing novels, typically focusing on social and legal issues and their impact on gender and power structures. The works examine social practices and exploitation through abuse, violence, and suppression of human rights. She has received numerous accolades and honours for her humanitarian work, including the Legion of Honour in 2010.
Unity Diswai was born on 23 April 1959, in Mochudi, Kgatleng District, Botswana (which at the time was the Bechuanaland Protectorate), to parents Phiri and Maefshane Diswai (also known as Moses and Ellen Diswai), descendants of the Mosarwa indigenous people and members of the BaKgatla tribe. The rural village in which she grew up had no paved roads, electricity nor running water. There were no telephones and she had not seen a refrigerator until she was a teenager, nor a television until she was twenty. Her mother was a seamstress, who was able to read and write in SeTswana, but not English. Her father, who worked a small farm, spoke and read English. When her father was at school, he won a scholarship to attend the University of Fort Hare, but the scholarship was given to the chief's son instead. For both her parents, education became a priority and six of their seven children completed their university studies. Their Western courses were unusual for rural Botswana at the time. Diswai completed her primary and secondary education in Mochudi. After high school, she studied law at the University of Botswana and Swaziland. Because there was no law school in Botswana at the time, under a British aid program she attended university in Swaziland and completed two years of study in Scotland, at the University of Edinburgh, before she earned her Bachelor of Laws in 1983 from the University of Botswana and Swaziland.
Diswai qualified as an attorney in 1983 and began working in the chambers of the Attorney-General of Botswana as a criminal prosecutor in Gaborone. She married a United States national, Peter Nathan Dow, on 7 March 1984. The couple made their home in Mochudi, with their three children. In 1986, Dow entered private practice specialising in criminal law, opening the firm Dow Malakaila, the first all-woman law firm in the country. That year, she became one of the founding members of the first women's group in Botswana Emang Basadi (Stand Up for Women). In 1988, the firm's name was later changed to Dow Lesetedi and Company. That year, she co-founded the organisation Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) to advocate for women and children's rights through litigation. From 1988 to 1991, Dow conducted research for WLSA, helping to complete a regional study on human rights for women in six neighboring countries. In 1990, she helped establish the Metlhaetsile Women's Information Centre to promote education on women's rights under the law.
In 1990, Dow filed suit in the High Court of Botswana to challenge the Nationality law of Botswana. Under the 1984 Citizenship Act, only illegitimate children could derive nationality through their mother. As two of her three children with Peter were born after their marriage, they were not considered Batswana. Fearful that there was a possibility that when Peter's residency permit expired in 1992, her family might be forced to move or split up, Dow initiated Unity Dow v Attorney-General, alleging that the Citizenship Law was discriminatory and contravened her right to avoid demeaning and inhumane punishment. The court found in favour of Dow concurring that the law impacted her free choice of whom to marry, could force her to be separated from her family if her husband and children's residency permits were not renewed, and was discriminatory.
Dow had taken a two-year sabbatical from her law practice in 1991 for the case and during that time, she co-founded the Baobob Primary School in Gaborone and the AIDS Action Trust. She served as a coordinator for WLSA from 1992 to 1994, while the appeal of her case was pending. During the appeal, Attorney General v Unity Dow, the state argued that discrimination against women was protected by the constitutional provisions to preserve the traditional customs of Botswana, which was a patrilineal society. The Attorney General also denied that Dow had standing, claiming she personally had suffered no actual harm. The Court of Appeal, led by Judge President Austin Amissah, concluded that sex discrimination contravened the Constitution and that customary tradition could not override the constitutional provisions for equal protection under the law, or the obligations Botswana had under the international agreements to which it was a signatory. On the issue of standing, the court found that she only had to prove that there was a possibility that she would be harmed by the law, not that she had been, and separation from her family would be degrading and inhumane. In a three to two majority decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court ruling with slight modifications, declaring Sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act were unconstitutional.
As a result of the landmark ruling, in 1995 the Citizenship Act was amended to remove gender disparity in the acquisition of nationality in Botswana. The ruling became the basis for women's groups throughout Africa to press for change in their nationality laws and eliminate gender disparities, resulting in nearly half of Africa's countries amending legislation on nationality by 2010. From 1994 to 1998, Dow served as the director of the Metlhaetsile Women's Information Centre and during that time published The Citizenship Case in 1995, detailing the legal proceedings of her case. In 1996, she worked on a case involving child maintenance that resulted in an amendment to the laws for support, and in 1997 she presented a case on battered woman syndrome, considering these to be significant issues for women. That year, Dow was appointed as a judge to the High Court of Botswana, and began serving the court in January 1998. Her appointment marked the first time a woman had been appointed to serve as a judge on the High Court.
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Unity Dow
Unity Dow (née Diswai; born 23 April 1959) is a Motswana lawyer, author, human rights activist and Member of Parliament for Kgatleng West since November 2024. She formerly served as a judge on the High Court of Botswana and in various Botswana government ministries. Born in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to a seamstress and a farmer, who insisted on their children obtaining an education, Dow grew up in a traditional rural village before modernisation. She earned a law degree in 1983 from the University of Botswana and Swaziland, though her studies were completed in Swaziland and University of Edinburgh, Scotland, as Botswana had no law school at the time. After her graduation, Dow opened the first all-woman law firm in Botswana and in 1997 became the first woman to be appointed as a judge to the country's High Court.
During her time in law, Dow was involved in three historic cases in Botswana. In 1992, she was the plaintiff in the landmark legal case, Unity Dow v Attorney-General, which ended the gender discrimination in the nation's nationality laws that had previously not allowed children to derive nationality from their married mothers. The case gained Dow international attention and sparked a wave of changes eliminating gender disparity in nationality laws across Africa. In 2006, as the presiding judge in the case of Roy Sesana and Others v. the Government of Botswana, Dow ruled against the government's actions to prohibit the Basarwa indigenous people from living and hunting on their ancestral lands, forcing them to resettle outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. She ruled that the government had to restore basic services, allow the Basarwa to return to the land and obtain hunting permits, and pay damages to those who had been forcibly relocated if they chose not to return. In 2014, Dow served as legal counsel for LEGABIBO (Lesbians, Gays & Bisexuals of Botswana) in their case to register their organisation with the Department of Civil and National Registration and successfully received a ruling for the government to allow the organisation to be registered.
Dow was first elected to the National Assembly in 2014, when she was nominated by President Ian Khama as a special elected member of parliament. She was first appointed as an Assistant Minister of Education and in 2015 became the Minister of Education and Skills Development. Subsequently she served as Minister of Basic Education, Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, and Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation, before becoming a backbencher in 2020. She has served on numerous international commissions and committees, evaluating the application of laws affecting the human rights of people in Kenya, Palestine, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. In 2000, Dow began publishing novels, typically focusing on social and legal issues and their impact on gender and power structures. The works examine social practices and exploitation through abuse, violence, and suppression of human rights. She has received numerous accolades and honours for her humanitarian work, including the Legion of Honour in 2010.
Unity Diswai was born on 23 April 1959, in Mochudi, Kgatleng District, Botswana (which at the time was the Bechuanaland Protectorate), to parents Phiri and Maefshane Diswai (also known as Moses and Ellen Diswai), descendants of the Mosarwa indigenous people and members of the BaKgatla tribe. The rural village in which she grew up had no paved roads, electricity nor running water. There were no telephones and she had not seen a refrigerator until she was a teenager, nor a television until she was twenty. Her mother was a seamstress, who was able to read and write in SeTswana, but not English. Her father, who worked a small farm, spoke and read English. When her father was at school, he won a scholarship to attend the University of Fort Hare, but the scholarship was given to the chief's son instead. For both her parents, education became a priority and six of their seven children completed their university studies. Their Western courses were unusual for rural Botswana at the time. Diswai completed her primary and secondary education in Mochudi. After high school, she studied law at the University of Botswana and Swaziland. Because there was no law school in Botswana at the time, under a British aid program she attended university in Swaziland and completed two years of study in Scotland, at the University of Edinburgh, before she earned her Bachelor of Laws in 1983 from the University of Botswana and Swaziland.
Diswai qualified as an attorney in 1983 and began working in the chambers of the Attorney-General of Botswana as a criminal prosecutor in Gaborone. She married a United States national, Peter Nathan Dow, on 7 March 1984. The couple made their home in Mochudi, with their three children. In 1986, Dow entered private practice specialising in criminal law, opening the firm Dow Malakaila, the first all-woman law firm in the country. That year, she became one of the founding members of the first women's group in Botswana Emang Basadi (Stand Up for Women). In 1988, the firm's name was later changed to Dow Lesetedi and Company. That year, she co-founded the organisation Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) to advocate for women and children's rights through litigation. From 1988 to 1991, Dow conducted research for WLSA, helping to complete a regional study on human rights for women in six neighboring countries. In 1990, she helped establish the Metlhaetsile Women's Information Centre to promote education on women's rights under the law.
In 1990, Dow filed suit in the High Court of Botswana to challenge the Nationality law of Botswana. Under the 1984 Citizenship Act, only illegitimate children could derive nationality through their mother. As two of her three children with Peter were born after their marriage, they were not considered Batswana. Fearful that there was a possibility that when Peter's residency permit expired in 1992, her family might be forced to move or split up, Dow initiated Unity Dow v Attorney-General, alleging that the Citizenship Law was discriminatory and contravened her right to avoid demeaning and inhumane punishment. The court found in favour of Dow concurring that the law impacted her free choice of whom to marry, could force her to be separated from her family if her husband and children's residency permits were not renewed, and was discriminatory.
Dow had taken a two-year sabbatical from her law practice in 1991 for the case and during that time, she co-founded the Baobob Primary School in Gaborone and the AIDS Action Trust. She served as a coordinator for WLSA from 1992 to 1994, while the appeal of her case was pending. During the appeal, Attorney General v Unity Dow, the state argued that discrimination against women was protected by the constitutional provisions to preserve the traditional customs of Botswana, which was a patrilineal society. The Attorney General also denied that Dow had standing, claiming she personally had suffered no actual harm. The Court of Appeal, led by Judge President Austin Amissah, concluded that sex discrimination contravened the Constitution and that customary tradition could not override the constitutional provisions for equal protection under the law, or the obligations Botswana had under the international agreements to which it was a signatory. On the issue of standing, the court found that she only had to prove that there was a possibility that she would be harmed by the law, not that she had been, and separation from her family would be degrading and inhumane. In a three to two majority decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court ruling with slight modifications, declaring Sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act were unconstitutional.
As a result of the landmark ruling, in 1995 the Citizenship Act was amended to remove gender disparity in the acquisition of nationality in Botswana. The ruling became the basis for women's groups throughout Africa to press for change in their nationality laws and eliminate gender disparities, resulting in nearly half of Africa's countries amending legislation on nationality by 2010. From 1994 to 1998, Dow served as the director of the Metlhaetsile Women's Information Centre and during that time published The Citizenship Case in 1995, detailing the legal proceedings of her case. In 1996, she worked on a case involving child maintenance that resulted in an amendment to the laws for support, and in 1997 she presented a case on battered woman syndrome, considering these to be significant issues for women. That year, Dow was appointed as a judge to the High Court of Botswana, and began serving the court in January 1998. Her appointment marked the first time a woman had been appointed to serve as a judge on the High Court.
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