It pays to have principles - Dow

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writer | Wednesday March 23, 2011 00:00

 

Dow was speaking to Mmegi yesterday following her latest honour by Newsweek, one of America's biggest weekly magazines, and The Daily Best, as one of the 150 extraordinary women who shake up the world. Dow said she feels greatly honoured to be among them, adding that there are many other women, who are also shaking up the world. 'There are many other women in the world who deserve it,' she said.  Dow, who is also the first Motswana female High Court judge, is in good company.  The 150 honoured women are from all spheres of life and include heads of state, activists and politicians. She is one of only 18 African women honoured, alongside Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Cameroonian Kah Walla, a presidential candidate, and Rebecca Lolosoli of Kenya, who founded an all-female village as a safe haven for women fleeing abuse.

Dow is also a human rights lawyer and activist. She first gained prominence for successfully suing the Botswana government and challenging the legality of the Citizenship Act. The Act denied children whose fathers were foreign nationals citizenship, even if their mothers were Batswana. She was also one of the three judges who presided over the 2006 landmark Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR) case.

She recently withdrew from the case in which she represented Kgosi Kgafela Kgafela of the Bakgatla, in which Kgafela, his younger brother Mmusi Kgafela and other tribesmen face assault charges for flogging tribesmen in Mochudi.  This raised questions on her credibility as a human rights lawyer defending somebody accused of trampling upon people's human rights.  To this Dow said: 'People are accused everyday of murder, stealing, and they are represented by lawyers.'

Dow has also established herself as a writer with five titles to her name.  The four novels - Far and Beyon', Screaming of the Innocent, Juggling Truths and The Heavens May Fall - deal with issues of HIV and AIDS, gender and people struggling to fit in with traditional and contemporary issues. 

Her latest book, Saturday is For Funerals, is co-written with Max Essex and illustrates how Botswana deals with the problem of HIV/AIDS. According to the Columbia School website, Dow was a visiting professor at their Law School in 2009.  In 2010, locally based French officials, representing the French president awarded her a Legion d'honneur De France.