Botswana legalises gay sex

IN ZIMBABWE “SODOMY” can land you in prison for a year. In Zambia “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” could mean seven or more years behind bars. Uganda passed a law in 2013 punishing gay acts with life imprisonment, though a court later struck it down.

Botswana’s high court decided that such laws “deserve a place in the museum or archives and not in the world”. Judge Michael Leburu, who read out a unanimous verdict when the court struck down the country’s ban on gay sex, said: “It is not the business of the law to regulate private consensual sexual encounters.” This ruling follows the unbanning of gay sex in Angola in January and in Mozambique in 2015. So far, South Africa is the only sub-Saharan country that allows gay marriage.