LGBTQ people in Botswana are celebrating today’s eagerly-awaited decision by the Court of Appeal to reject an attempt by the government to reinstate the country’s ban on same-sex sexuality. The victory follows the Attorney General’s appeal of the historic and unanimous 2019 ruling by the Botswana High Court that the criminalisation of consensual same-sex sexual activities violates the constitutional rights of LGBTQ people to dignity, liberty, privacy and equality.
It struck down colonial-era sections of the penal code that prohibited “carnal knowledge of a person against the order of nature” and attracted a term of imprisonment of seven years.