Lobatse

The respondent, Ms. Unity Dow, brought a case to the High Court of Botswana asserting that sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act violated her right to equal protection of the law and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex because the sections of the Citizenship Act treated children differently depending on whether they were born to citizen mothers or to citizen fathers. The respondent had one child with an American man prior to their marriage and two children after.

The appellant appealed his conviction for rape, arguing that the Penal Code sections dealing with rape are discriminatory because they provide increased penalties for a person convicted of rape if they are found to be HIV-positive.  The Court held that the relevant provisions of the Penal Code apply when the convicted person was HIV-positive at the time he committed the rape and that it is therefore a reasonable provision in order to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.   

The appellant appeals his conviction for the murder of his live-in girlfriend and his sentence of 12 years imprisonment.  The Court upheld the sentence, noting the increasing incidence in Botswana of former lovers killing their partners and opining that the courts should impose appropriately stiff sentences as a deterrent. 

The appellant was found guilty in magistrates court of raping a 10-year-old girl and sentenced to 10 years in prison.  He appeals on the question of whether sexual intercourse with a girl of that age should be considered as rape or "defilement" because rape requires a lack of consent while the Penal Code defines defilement as carnal knowledge of anyone under the age of 16.

The appellant challenged the sentence for rape under the sections of the Penal Code that set forth mandatory minimum sentences for rape charges depending on circumstances such as the perpetrator's use of violence or the perpetrator's status as being HIV positive.