Born: 23 April 1959, Botswana
Died: NA
Country most active: Botswana
Also known as: NA
Unity Dow a Motswana judge, human rights activist and writer currently who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from 2 November 2019 – 26 August 2020. She successfully challenged a law that limited citizenship, inherited by children from the fathers but not from their mothers (Attorney General of Botswana v Unity Dow (1992)). The father of Unity’s children was not a Botswana citizen, meaning the children were not either. She later became Botswana’s first female High Court judge. She was also co-founder of the country’s first all-female law practice and was one of the founding members of the women’s organization Emang Basadi.
Dow has published several books, often addressing issues around the struggle between Western and traditional African values, as well as gender issues and her nation’s poverty.
In 2005, Unity Dow became a member of a UN mission to Sierra Leone to review the domestic application of international women’s human rights. On 13 December 2006, she was one of three judges who ruled on the prominent Kgalagadi (San, Bushmen or Basarwa) court decision, concerning the rights of the San to return to their ancestral lands. The court ruled that the residents had been forcibly and unconstitutionally removed, though forced relocation continued.
Since 2007, Dow has been a member of a special mission to review the Rwandan Judiciaries preparedness to take over the hearing of the 1994 genocide cases. Dow was also sworn in as Justice of the IICDRC (Interim Independent Constitutional Dispute Resolution Court) of Kenya by the Kenyan President to serve implementing the new constitution in Kenya.