A 21 year old student at the University of Botswana (UB) reading English and African Languages and Literature who dreams of one day being a teacher is taking the Botswana Government to court to challenge the constitutionality of legal provisions stigmatizing same sex relationships.

“Being a homosexual is not something new in my life, it is something, that I have learnt to live with growing up since the age of ten (10),” said Letsweletse Motshidiemang, a Kalanga boy from Mathangwane village in the northern parts of the country says in his affidavit.

He said, “I am in a sexually intimate relationship with a man. I have no doubt that this will be the case for the rest of my life. My friends, roommates at the University of Botswana have accepted me, even at the University of Botswana I feel free and accepted.”

Motshidiemang avers that section 164(a) and/or (c) and section 167 of the Penal code violate his fundmanetal rights and freedom of liberty because they prohibit him from using his body as he chooses even though he is causing no harm to the public.

Section 164 and 167 criminalizes homosexuality saying, “Any person who (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits any other person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

“By virtue of one or more of these provisions of the law, I am prohibited from expressing the greatest emotion of love through the act of enjoying sexual intercourse with another consenting adult male that I am sexually attracted to and who is also sexually attracted to me, as consenting adults,” said Motshidiemang.