43 Facts About Unity Dow

Unity Dow is a Motswana lawyer, author, human rights activist and Member of Parliament for Kgatleng West since November 2024.

Unity Dow formerly served as a judge on the High Court of Botswana and in various Botswana government ministries.

Unity Dow 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.

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.

Unity Dow 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, Unity Dow served as legal counsel for LEGABIBO 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.

Unity 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.

Unity Dow was first appointed as an Assistant Minister of Education and in 2015 became the Minister of Education and Skills Development.

Unity Dow 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, Unity Dow began publishing novels, typically focusing on social and legal issues and their impact on gender and power structures.

Unity Dow has received numerous accolades and honours for her humanitarian work, including the Legion of Honour in 2010.

Unity Dow Diswai was born on 23 April 1959, in Mochudi, Kgatleng District, Botswana, to parents Phiri and Maefshane Diswai, descendants of the Mosarwa indigenous people and members of the BaKgatla tribe.

Unity Dow's mother was a seamstress, who was able to read and write in SeTswana, but not English.

Unity Dow married a United States national, Peter Nathan Dow, on 7 March 1984.

In 1986, Unity Dow entered private practice specialising in criminal law, opening the firm Unity Dow Malakaila, the first all-woman law firm in the country.

From 1988 to 1991, Unity Dow conducted research for WLSA, helping to complete a regional study on human rights for women in six neighboring countries.

In 1990, Unity Dow filed suit in the High Court of Botswana to challenge the Nationality law of Botswana.

Unity 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.

Unity Dow served as a coordinator for WLSA from 1992 to 1994, while the appeal of her case was pending.

The Attorney General denied that Unity Dow had standing, claiming she personally had suffered no actual harm.

From 1994 to 1998, Unity 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.

That year, Unity Dow was appointed as a judge to the High Court of Botswana, and began serving the court in January 1998.

Unity Dow's appointment marked the first time a woman had been appointed to serve as a judge on the High Court.

Unity Dow was elected as a commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists in 2004 and re-elected to the post in 2009.

Unity Dow ordered that services be restored and that damages should be paid to those who had been relocated and had no wish to return.

In 2007, Unity Dow served as a member of a special mission of the International Legal Assistance Consortium to assess the Rwandan judicial system and evaluate how the country could emerge from its past of conflict and rehabilitate its justice system to ensure that defendants in the 1994 genocide cases receive a fair trial.

Unity Dow delayed implementation of the 30 per cent increase and the case was ultimately dropped.

Unity Dow retired from the bench in April 2009 to lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia and the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, prior to serving as a visiting professor at Columbia Law School in New York City.

That year Unity Dow began to work with Ricki Kgositau and another transgender activist regarding their inability to obtain identity cards with their appropriate gender.

On 6 July 2012 Unity Dow was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as one of three independent experts to conduct a fact-finding mission on how Israel's West Bank settlements affect Palestinians.

Unity Dow ran in the 2014 general election for the Mochudi West District, but lost her bid for a seat in the National Assembly.

On 28 October 2014, Unity Dow was nominated, along with six other candidates, by President Ian Khama of Botswana as a special elected member of parliament.

Unity Dow served in that capacity until September 2016, when in a cabinet shuffle, she was appointed as Minister of Basic Education.

In 2000, when Unity Dow began publishing fiction, few Batswana writers had produced works which reached an audience outside Botswana.

Unity Dow's dismemberment is hidden in the novel as a symbolic representation of the lack of acknowledgement of such practices in society at large.

Unity Dow makes clear her belief that women will be the drivers of changes in policy to end such practices.

Unity Dow again evaluated reprehensible cultural practices and social norms with strategies for combating them.

Unity Dow contributed to the book Schicksal Afrika compiled by the former German President Horst Kohler in 2010, which collected works by well-known authors.

Unity Dow's essay focused on colonialism and the distrust Africa has developed for its own wisdom.

Unity Dow has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including honorary doctorates of law from Kenyon College, Saint Michael's College, and the University of Edinburgh.

Unity Dow has been recognised for her human rights work with the William Brennan Human Rights Award of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey; the Phyllis N Stern Distinguished Lectureship Award of the International Council on Women's Health Issues; and the Prominent Women in International Law Award of the American Society of International Law's Women in International Law Interest Group.

Unity Dow was a nominee for the Harvard Law School's Women Inspiring Change exhibit.

Unity Dow was honoured with the Global Achievement Award of the Middle East Excellence Award Institute of Dubai for her work in peace and human development initiatives on 11 November 2012.