‘She does not back down’: the couple seeking to legalise same-sex marriage in Botswana | Botswana
B.Onolo Selelo saw Tsholofelo Kumile while he was at Botswana’s national museum for the Gaborone Pride event and was impressed by his good looks. The two struck up a conversation, and when Kumile expressed concerns about what a tarot reading at the event might bring, Selelo didn’t offer to give her a hug. The reading was positive, but Kumile hugged him anyway and they talked for hours.
It was October 1, 2023. Two months later they started living together. Later, during a walk during the Easter holidays in 2024, Selelo proposed to Kumile. A year later, they visited a local government office to declare their intention to marry and were told it was not legal.
“It was kind of expected, but I don’t think they expected a reaction,” Kumile said. He looked at Selelo fondly. “He’s not backing down.”
The couple filed a lawsuit demanding the right to marry. The hearings are planned to be held on July 14 and 15. If they are successful, Botswana will become the second African country to legalize same-sex marriage, after South Africa in 2006. But the case faces fierce opposition from the government, traditional groups and church groups.
“We discussed this issue sincerely,” said Selelo, sitting next to his fiancée in the office of the law firm where Kumile works. “I said… I want us to get married because I love you, but there’s also the practical part.”
As a lawyer, Selelo was worried about what would happen to Kumile if he died. “I feel like I can withstand a lot of legal pressure, but I don’t want her to be abused if I’m no longer there to provide that protection. And for me, marriage will provide her with additional protection that no other institution can provide.”
Botswana decriminalized same-sex relations in 2019 when the high court ruled that the British colonial-era ban was unconstitutional. The decision was upheld on appeal in 2021. The government is now advocating a ban on same-sex marriage.
A spokesman for Botswana’s Attorney General said: “The Attorney General’s view… is that the Marriage Act provides that a valid marriage is a marriage between a bride and groom and/or husband and wife, and refers to the bond between a man and a woman in the traditional sense. The Marriage Act does not provide for same-sex marriages.”
Selelo and Kumile another law, Law of InterpretationHe supports their cause because the law states: “Words denoting the male gender in a statute include the female gender, while words denoting the female gender include men.”
Most of Southern Africa and the continent’s island states are relatively liberal compared to the rest of Africa, which has 32 of 54 countries. criminalize consensual same-sex intimacy. Since 2012, Lesotho, Mozambique, Seychelles, Angola, Mauritius and Namibia have legalized same-sex relationships.
But some countries on the continent have introduced tougher laws amid a global backlash against LGBTQ+ rights. Uganda in 2023 and Senegal this year increased prison sentences for consensual homosexual sex, and both criminalized the “promotion” of homosexuality.
Opinions about LGBTQ+ people in Botswana have become more negative since the decriminalization decision in 2019. in 2021 questionnaire In the survey conducted by Pan-African research organization Afrobarometer, half of Botswanans said they either wanted gay people to be neighbors or did not care; It ranked fifth among the 34 countries surveyed. Three years later, this figure emerged fell to 41%.
LGBTQ+ rights campaign group Legabibo said:Lorato Ke Lorato” (Love is Love) trying to change hearts and minds. “We want to show ourselves as ordinary citizens… We do not demand any special rights,” said Matlhongonolo Samsam, who led the campaign.
On the other side is the Dingwetsi Association, a traditional women’s group that supports heterosexual marriage and is trying to join the cause. Grace Silver founded it in 2015, concerned about the divorce and family breakup rates. It said it currently had around 2,000 members paying 20 pula (£1.10) a month.
Members often wear traditional headdresses and blue, white and black plaid blankets, indicating that they are married women. A few people came to wear the outfit The Selelo and Kumile case has a hearing in March. “This is our culture. We need to preserve it,” Silver said.
The silver ceremony was accompanied by Moshe Morebodi from the Botswana House of Prayer and Transformation. “Gay civil rights are a subset of a satanic cult,” he said.
Approximately 80 percent of Botswana’s population is Christian World Religion Database. Tshepo Ricki Kgositau runs the Ricki Kgositau Foundation to support transgender Botswanans and is also a member of the LGBTQ+ mission team at the Methodist Church of South Africa. He said: “It was really disappointing to see the extremely conservative and narrow interpretations of some conservative faith community members. If you don’t know love, you can’t claim to know God.”
The lack of same-sex marriage in Botswana has caused Kgositau to experience difficulties of his own. He married his wife in South Africa in 2017. She was supposed to come to Botswana for their traditional wedding, but because she had not yet legally changed her gender (which requires a court order), she was banned from entering the country. They also lost the money they spent planning the celebrations. “It was absolutely devastating,” he said.
For Brendon Tereki and his partner Tashatha, the legal case brings hope. Their first date at a popular bar in Gaborone after connecting on Facebook two years ago was also Tereki’s first date with a man in public. By the end of the night, Tashatha had made him feel comfortable enough to kiss. “It made me open up more than I thought it would,” Tereki said. “I really want to get married.”
