22 November 2004

Women of Rwanda Face Life After the Genocide, November 22, 2004

("God Sleeps in Rwanda" documents changed lives of female survivors)

By Bruce Greenberg
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- According to a native saying, "When God wanders the world, at the end of the day he comes to Rwanda to sleep because He considers this to be the most beautiful place on earth."

Ten years ago, many believed God was unable to sleep in peace in Rwanda as tribal genocide took a million lives and nearly destroyed the country.

Most of those who died were members of the Tutsi minority or sympathetic Hutus, and many were adult and teenage males. As a result, women have become almost 70 percent of the population and have taken a central role in rebuilding the nation.

The gripping film documentary, "God Sleeps in Rwanda," presented by photojournalists Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars November 9, explores how the Rwandan genocide affected the lives of the women and girls who survived. Ms. Acquaro was joined by Norah Bagarinkah, a survivor of the genocide and now a women's advocate for change in Rwanda.

In describing the circumstances of the genocide, Acquaro pointed to the bitter ironies it created for the country's women. Even as the killings left countless Rwandan women without husbands or income -- and in many cases childless -- it catapulted them into the prominent role of nation-builders.

Having lost the men in their families, the women assumed the social and political power they had never previously thought to wield: they could now inherit property, enter the business world and become successful breadwinners on their own.

Generations of a patriarchal society were destroyed in the genocide, Acquaro said, and a new egalitarian society has emerged rapidly from the ashes, with women assuming leadership roles in a country where men have become the minority.

Before the genocide, Acquaro explained, women made up less than 6 percent of the government. Today, she said, the Rwandan parliament has the highest percentage of women members of any national legislature in the world: "Women make up 49 percent of the lower house and 30 percent of the upper house, as well as 30 percent of local government, after only 10 years. In contrast, the U.S. Congress has only approximately 15 percent of its members who are women."

"Prior to the holocaust, Rwandan boys outnumbered schoolgirls by a ratio of 9 to 1. Now boys and girls are attending schools in equal numbers, with as many as 50 percent of college students female," she added.

There have been other effects of the horrors of 1994, both good and bad, that have had a huge impact on the women of Rwanda depicted in this film.

Many women have become the extended caregivers for the countless orphans of violence and the AIDS pandemic, both Tutsi and Hutu. These survivors are now the key element of the healing process as they care for and raise the children of their former enemies.

The genocide also led to other atrocities, which, for women and girls, almost always involved gang rape, physical and mental torture, and disease. The U.N. Human Rights organization estimates that some 250,000 Rwandan women and children were raped, and of those who survived, a sizable number were infected with HIV and are now dying of AIDS.

Norah Bagarinkah, who witnessed the murders and rapes, often wonders to herself why God has spared her: "Why am I alive? Why? So I know that God has a purpose for me. It is to help other women more vulnerable than myself.

"We want to make a change," she said, "to make it possible for the next generation to grow up with a different attitude. Women are organizing and have entered positions of leadership. We want the world to know that women can stand up and make a change, can make a difference.

"I am here to deliver a message: that genocide is the worst [thing] in the world; that we must learn from [Rwanda], so that it doesn't happen anywhere else."

The Wilson Center will be offering "When God Sleeps in Rwanda" as a streaming video program on its Web site at: http://wwics.si.edu/