Author: Nelson Kalberer
March 25, 2025
Introduction:
Since its formation in 1946, the United Nations (UN) has advocated for the protection of women’s rights. There have been many developments in international legislation to accomplish this. In December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights highlighted the UN’s aim towards “the equal rights of men and women.” This was followed by the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, and the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration for Marriages between 1952-62. In December 1979, the UN adopted the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), commonly known as the “international bill of rights for women.” In 1981, CEDAW was put into force, faster than any other human rights convention at that time. 189 out of 195 UN Member States have ratified CEDAW since, with the exceptions of Iran, Pilau, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga, and the United States of America, making it one of the most successful pieces of human rights legislation.
CEDAW legally binds states to protect women’s rights, focusing on their political, legal, civil, economic, and reproductive rights. Generally, it has been incredibly successful in changing social norms to globally improve women’s rights. In 1975, only four women were heads of state; in 2018, there were 19, a 475% increase. A UNESCO study shows between 1970-2019, global female life expectancy grew from 66 years to 74 years (in least developed countries the growth was 45 years to 66 years), the gender pay gap has fallen significantly in most countries, and school life expectancy for female students grew from 6.7 years to 12.5 years.
CEDAW monitors and enforces the treaty through national reports submitted by member states that detail the implementation of the convention. These reports, expected every four years and often not submitted without consequences, are mostly based on evidence from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rather than the government, which may lead to issues of access, funding, and detail in the report. Additionally, victims of alleged CEDAW violations can only appeal to CEDAW if their State has ratified CEDAW and they have exhausted domestic remedies. This leads to an (average) two-year process of deciding if there has been a violation and, if so, a recommendation by CEDAW on how to prevent this discrimination.
While states’ commitments to CEDAW certainly cause their governments to be more inclined to protect women’s rights, evidence from national activist movements challenge CEDAW’s effectiveness. Since 2000, women’s rights have improved more through national activist movements than by international pressure from CEDAW. The efforts of the Gulabi Gang in Northern India, Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan, the Ni Una Menos marches in South America, Lebanese women’s successful campaign against a controversial rape law, to name a few, have influenced and pressured their governments to commit more heavily to CEDAW and other international commitments. National movements demonstrate how activism drives change as well as reinforce international commitments to CEDAW.
In contrast, Rwanda’s commitment to CEDAW was improved through international pressure, domestic politics, and was directly related to the trauma of the Rwandan Genocide. Rwanda’s improved policy on women’s rights was a decision from the government rather than the people, which separates it from feminist movements. Unfortunately, it often takes catastrophes to initiate protection of women’s rights rather than states’ voluntary commitments. Additionally, the goals of CEDAW – eliminating discrimination against women and promoting gender equality – must be supported by both the government and the people. Governments often delay or resist their commitments to CEDAW, but the post-genocide Rwandan government did not. This research aims to explain Rwanda’s shift towards being at the forefront of women’s rights, specifically related to the processes of eliminating domestic violence and criminalising rape, while also having one of the worst records of sexual violence in Africa.
Rwanda’s Commitment to CEDAW before 1994:
Despite being the first African country to ratify CEDAW, Rwanda’s reports to CEDAW in 1984, 1991, and 1993 showed social and cultural values throughout Rwanda competing with implementing legislation on women’s rights. Additionally, legislation on protecting women’s rights must pass through the government and be enacted as national law, facing incredible challenges because of gendered power dynamics. Furthermore, Rwanda’s Constitution did not contain provisions that would allow CEDAW to be implemented into legislation directly.
By 1984, Rwanda had updated articles in the Criminal Code and Civil Code to protect women’s rights, with at least one annual seminar being organised to raise consciousness of feminist groups. Men and women were given the same opportunities for divorce, and the Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote. Similarly, the 1991 and 1993 reports showed Rwanda had made prostitution illegal, updated the Civil Code to no longer presume men were the head of the family, and increased Rwandan women’s awareness of their rights through the organisation Urunana rw’ Abanyarwandakazi mu Majyambere (URAMA).
Unfortunately, it was not a simple case of empowering women to take bigger roles in society by introducing new laws protecting women’s rights. A Human Rights Watch study described Rwandan women as traditionally “regarded and treated as dependents of their male relatives.” The progress that Rwanda reported to CEDAW were stonewalled by cultural values of motherhood and docility. Legal emancipation under Rwanda’s Constitution mattered little when women’s voting rights were determined by their husbands, economic freedom required a husband’s signature, and women were denied land ownership. Parents favoured educating sons rather than daughters, and it was believed “the strength of a family was measured by the number of its boys.” From an early age, girls were taught to be wives and mothers who thrive at keeping reserved attitudes and submitting to their husbands, bearing them with an average 6.2 children per woman.
A common theme to Rwanda’s CEDAW reports in this period was the idea it was only a matter of time before women’s societal status was raised to the level of men’s. Regarding URAMA, which Rwanda focused on as a prime method of implementing knowledge about women’s rights throughout the country, the 1993 report, like the 1991 report, often referred to institutions that had been in place at the time of the previous report. This made it unclear whether women’s status and rights had changed in that time. For example, the 1993 report suggested a close connection between the Rwandan government and URAMA, but the organisation had effectively stopped existing since 1992. It is almost impossible that Rwanda’s representatives to CEDAW were not aware of this development, showing a lack of commitment.
Furthermore, the civil war between the Rwandan Army and Rwandan Patriotic Front, which began in 1990, along with a highly traditional and patriarchal society made it difficult for Rwanda to commit to CEDAW. As a developing country, Rwanda did not have the means to enforce CEDAW through legislation in the same way a wealthy and developed country could. A 1993 Human Rights Watch report also reported that the Rwandan judicial system was paralysed due to political interference and human rights abuses throughout the country, making commitment to CEDAW a low priority. Grassroots initiatives were likely the only way to develop protection of women’s rights, but in such a male-dominated society as 1980’s Rwanda, this would take significant time. It would require going against decades and even centuries of cultural traditions and family values. For example, the 1991 report stated any change to dowry for marriages was met with heavy debate.
Cultural traditions and family values made it difficult for Rwanda to implement legislature protecting women from domestic violence, gender-based violence, and rape. Women had a low standard of living because of the patriarchal class structure. There was a history of control over women’s lives, bodies, and social freedom for the benefit of men in Rwanda. This included dowry, cultures of prostitution, and gukuna, a cultural practice for increased male sexual pleasure through the elongation of the labia and clitoris. Having been taught by their mothers and other maternal figures to be docile and silent towards their male partners, there was no protection for them against male aggressors.
The 1993 Human Rights Watch report described the possibility of women reporting cases of rape committed by soldiers as “futile.” This was also true for gender-based violence, including wife-beating, and rape by non-soldiers. Rwanda’s 1991 CEDAW report claimed that violence against women was not a “crucial problem,” describing them as “isolated incidents.” In the same report, the Rwandan representative clarified this claim by explaining that women did not traditionally file complaints, not commenting on how widespread rape was nor on what actions could be taken to prevent it. The dominance of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda, estimated to have infected over 25% of the entire population, meant incidents of rape in Rwanda should have been a “crucial problem.” While it affected both men and women, the government's weak response reflected its perception of women’s societal values at that time.
Violence Against Women during the Genocide, 7 April – 19 July 1994:
In just over 100 days, 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were killed by the Hutu genocidaires. The killing was collective; many Hutu genocidaires have described their actions against neighbours they often knew personally as regimented into “killing times” to remove themselves from the crimes they committed. For further explanation of the genocide as a whole, I recommend this report along with Mahmood Mamdani’s book When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (2001).
The women in the Rwandan genocide were subjected to incredible violence during this period, which is listed in part below:
Most official estimates believe 250,000 to 500,000 women were raped. Many were raped and then killed. Survivors often left their communities because of the shame and stigma surrounding rape further contributing to the loss of Tutsi women in Rwanda even after the genocide.
Up to 20,000 children were born because of rape, impacting women psychologically and economically.
Amnesty International UK estimated at least 70% of all genocide rape victims were infected with HIV/AIDS as a result of rape. Human Rights Watch researcher Binaifer Nowrojee said the survivors are now living in a “suspended death sentence” as many were dying of AIDS. Many of the women raped during the genocide were not killed because their attackers believed the disease would kill them.
Nowrojee reports widespread instances of sexual slavery and forced “marriages” for women who wanted to survive. Even after the RPF was defeated, Rwandan Army officials raped Tutsi women as reward for their liberation, known in Kinyarwanda as kubohoza, documented by Nowrojee and Jennie Burnet. Senior Human Rights Watch Advisor Alison Des Forges also reported on orders by Rwandan soldiers to hand over female students as a contribution to the war effort, known as umusanzu.
The violence against women was specifically tied to the social relationships between men and women. Tutsi women were doubly Othered, firstly as women and secondly as Tutsi, leading to an increase in sexual violence. They were not only seen as subordinate to men, but also as an inferior race. This double subordination can be seen through the Interahamwe’s actions, often raping and sexually torturing women before killing them. Women were considered property, and the genocidaires systematically raped women to induce terror or to reduce women as non-human.
The rape, forced marriages, and coercive relationships between survivors and the liberating Rwandan Patriotic Army represented the inequality between men and women. These instances of rape were technically legal under Rwanda’s penal code because it classified rape as through nonconsent, not through coercive methods or circumstances. Coercion played a major role in these rapes and forced marriages, but the penal code only considered whether there was consent or not. The women’s lack of choice against their “liberators” displayed the total inequality between men and women in Rwanda, regardless of ethnic group.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and Changing International Definitions of Rape:
When the genocide ended and the Interahamwe had been defeated, the international community established the ICTR to prosecute those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law in Rwanda and neighbouring states. These included crimes against humanity, genocide, and Common Article 3 and the Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions. Between 26 June 1995 and 31 December 2015, the ICTR indicted 93 individuals for the crime of genocide and other violations of international humanitarian law, including crimes against humanity, acquitted 14, and withdrew 2 indictments. The ICTR also included the first successful charge of genocide since the term was introduced in the Nuremberg Trials against Nazi leaders in 1948 as well as the first time a head of state (Former Interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda) pled guilty to genocide. Regarding the genocide against the Tutsi, the ICTR determined in 2006 it was a “genocide beyond dispute.”
However, criminalising the violence against women during the genocide was disputable and not as straightforward. The 1994 definition of rape by Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy was based on a lack of consent and included all types of penetration to make all rape cases able to be prosecuted. However, in the ICTR’s cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, it was challenging to identify whether rape was due to a lack of consent or fear and terror. This was mainly because there had not been any international criminal tribunals that had prosecuted rape as a war crime. The opportunity to create an international definition that criminalised rape in these circumstances was unsuccessful at providing universal justice to survivors. This specifically relates to differences between “nonconsent” and “coercion” as definitions of rape.
Feminist legal expert Catharine A. MacKinnon defines nonconsent in rape as limited to the mental states of the victim and perpetrator as well as to explicitly sexual acts. Prosecuting rape in this way analyses the mental states of who wanted what – “love or passion gone wrong.” It also emphasises the physical nature of the crime, limiting it to a “deprivation of sexual freedom” and individual choice only in each case of rape. This means that in each case, an understanding of what constitutes rape changes with each case.
On the other hand, coercion highlights the power dynamic between victim and perpetrator. The crime of coercion considers the physical acts, context, and exploitation of relative position. It goes beyond a singular incident and towards a wider narrative that relates to Rwanda’s, and other nations’, social structures. The main differences between nonconsent and coercion is that nonconsent only recognises the physical absence of consent between two people, while coercion accounts for all circumstances imposed on the victim.
During the ICTR’s prosecutions, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) also prosecuted persons charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, and other violations of international humanitarian law in the Balkans during the 1990s and the official genocide in Srebrenica. The Bosnian Genocide also had widespread incidents of rape, which Serbians used as a method of terrorism against Bosniaks. Incidences of rape during the conflict meant that rape was given much consideration in the tribunals. The two tribunals looked to the other for how to define rape, which is why the ICTY is mentioned – it influenced the ICTR prosecution on rapes. Through these cases, it is clear the international community was unsure how to prosecute and define rape. They often used the national legislation relevant to the perpetrators, which led to different outcomes on a case-by-case basis.
During the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, the first figure to be charged with genocide in the ICTR, rape was defined as “a physical invasion of a sexual nature, committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive” including “acts which did not involve penetration or even physical contact.” The non-physical charges of rape in this case related to instances where Mr. Akayesu ordered, aided, and witnessed rapes and sexual violence committed by Interahamwe members. In this decision, the Trial Chamber understood “coercive circumstances need not be evidenced by a show of physical force.” In this case, Mr. Akayesu was charged with rape for broad “physical invasions of a sexual nature.” The definition reached in this case also allowed prosecutions of those who forced others to rape or commit sexual violence on others.
This case concerned the crimes of Zejnil Delalić (acquitted), Zdravko Mucić, Hazim Delić, and Esad Landžo in the Čelebići camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both Mr. Delić and Mr. Landžo were charged with rape, and in the Trial Chamber’s definition of rape, they saw no reason to define rape differently than in Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu. In this case, the physical act of rape was committed under circumstances that were coercive.
While this case continued a trend shown by the previous two cases where rape was prosecuted as a war crime, crime against humanity, and as a method of committing genocide, the definition of rape was different. The Trial Chamber defined it as occurring through either sexual penetration and/or coercion but specified that in absence of an accepted international definition it should use the national legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since Mr. Furundžija was its citizen. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s legislation criminalised rape as sexual penetration, which was how this Trial Chamber prosecuted Mr. Furundžija after noting and then ignoring the definition found in Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu.
This was one of the first cases to mention both the judgements in Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu and Prosecutor v. Furundžija. The Trial Chamber used the definition in the Akayesu case as the primary standard and explained that it encompassed the definition present in the Furundžija case. This case also mentioned the benefits of applying the Furundžija case’s use of national legislation to prosecute rape.
This case had two developments to the definition of rape, firstly in the Trial Chamber and secondly in the Appeals Chamber. The Trial Chamber concluded that rape was sexual penetration occurring without the consent of the victim and with the knowledge sexual penetration is occurring without consent. Consent was defined as “consent given voluntarily, as a result of the victim’s free will, assessed in the context of the surrounding circumstances.” In other words, it is consent given completely freely and without coercion. This case’s prosecution of rape was tied to the wording of “consent,” which meant rape was penetration by force. Catharine A. MacKinnon sees this development as equating force with nonconsent.
The Appeals Chamber challenged the Trial Chamber’s definition and explained that because the victims were held in rape camps in Foča, their ability to consent was impossible. The Appeals Chamber sided with the coercive definition of rape because of instances like Kunarac et al where “there [was] no possibility of consent.” This decision could have been applicable to war zones, crimes against humanity, and genocides because of the intense pressure and fear imposed on potential victims. However, since the decision was made only on the facts of Kunarac et al, it was only applicable for that specific case. Future cases were not obliged to follow the procedure from this case.
This case attempted to bridge the gap between definitions of rape in the Akayesu case and the Kunarac et al case. The Trial Chamber found it was “free to infer non-consent from the background circumstances, such as an ongoing genocide.” This means that while consent is important to identify if a rape has occurred, the coercive environment nullified any questions of whether there was or was not consent. The Appeals Chamber went further, stating consent was not allowed as a defence for Mr. Gacumbitsi if the victim was subjected or threatened with violence, torture, or other forms of duress. Through the recognition of coercion as a factor in rape, Mr. Gacumbitsi’s sentence was increased from thirty years to life imprisonment.
Women’s Rights in Rwanda from 1994-2006:
The next CEDAW report that Rwanda was due to submit was September 1994. Delayed due to the genocide, Rwanda was unable to submit it at the time and instead submitted it in September 2006, though it did present an oral report in 1996.
This report demonstrates a substantial growth in Rwanda’s commitment to women’s rights prior to the genocide. The post-genocide political changes and the new Rwandan Constitution signed in 2003 led the way for the establishment of women’s rights organisations throughout the country. These included a National Council for Women, and a commitment to following recommendations from the 2002 World Conference on Women in Beijing. Active measures were also taken to improve women’s rights to education, freedom from torture and sexual violence, employment, health, and economic freedom. The new Constitution also included a gender quota that at least one third of all government positions had to be filled by women.
These measures showed signs of significant improvement. Maternal mortality had been 1,071 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000, but this number dropped to 750 by 2005. In a section on rural women’s economic power, the report highlights their financial vulnerability and lack of healthcare but notes that funds had been established in each district to provide these women with healthcare and economic freedom.
Rwanda identified key areas of focus for its national gender policy called “Vision 2020.” These included poverty reduction, agriculture and food security, health, HIV/AIDS, education, human rights and gender-based violence, and protection of both the people and environment.
There is also important acknowledgment of failures in advancing women’s rights. Poverty, ignorance, and traditional society and stereotypes are seen as the largest difficulties in addressing CEDAW.
Unlike the pre-genocide CEDAW reports, the 2006 report is complex and detailed. In HIV/AIDS statistics, there were key figures that showed its prevalence rates: 3% nationwide; 3.6% among women; and 2.3% among men. In contrast, the 1991 report had no statistics on HIV/AIDS.
The report also shows how influential the genocide was in introducing legislation protecting and improving women’s rights, especially sexual violence, which is called “exceptional” in the report. In its recognition of improvements to the Criminal Code for sentencing of rape, there is a difference between offences committed during and after the genocide. Those found guilty of rape or sexual torture during the genocide without confessing were charged with the death penalty or life imprisonment. For crimes committed after the genocide, the charge drops to 5 to 10 years’ imprisonment regardless of confession (the same charge present in the 1977 Penal Code) or the death penalty if the crime results in the death of the victim. As the ICTR was a military tribunal, the crimes of rape and sexual violence were treated as crimes within war, leading to charges with longer sentences. While rape committed in war is a different crime than in peace because of the intention behind the rape (to destroy and terrorise), rape in the Rwandan genocide was committed by both sides during and after the genocide. This creates a problem because it differentiates rape into which was committed by the aggressor and which was committed by the liberator, not necessarily based on the severity of the crime. Had the ICTR and ICTY decided on clear definition of rape, it is likely that that definition and the charges would be visible in Rwanda’s Penal Code.
Reality and Healing in Rwanda:
Following the genocide, there were various cultural-linguistic practices of resilience amongst survivors:
Kwihangana: A source of strength in the face of suffering. This encourages patience when feeling painful memories or experiences.
Kwongera kubaho: Believing one can find and live their life after surviving the genocide.
Gukomeza ubuzima: Put simply, this means to keep living.
However, rape and sexual violence was still widespread. The kubohoza rapes by RPF soldiers were the main incidents, as well as rapes committed in northwestern Rwanda by Interahamwe living in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Rape in these areas was a social problem for women and girls.
Survivors risked social isolation out of stigmas surrounding rape. Many did not feel comfortable speaking out against their attackers. This included Hutu women, who were concerned that they would not be believed due to their Hutu ethnicity. Women suffered incredible psychological trauma by not speaking about their experiences and were shunned if they did. The ICTR also had trouble obtaining testimonies from survivors, mainly because the interviewers were men. Successful interviews and testimonies about female experiences in the genocide were through female interviewers.
For single women who were starting to get married after the genocide, they experienced high levels of domestic violence compared to those who had been married before the genocide. Intimate-partner violence, or IPV, also increased in the years following the genocide. In the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey, 19.4% of all women had experienced domestic violence in the past 12 months. That same survey found 31% of all women had experienced domestic violence since turning fifteen years old.
Traditional social values were largely unchanged, if not worse than before the genocide. The main difference was there were outlets for women to heal. As Rwanda shifted in a positive direction towards women’s rights protection, women’s social lives stayed mostly the same.
Women’s Rights up to Now:
Since 2006, Rwanda has been the first country in the world to have a female majority in parliament, with women holding over 60% of the seats. Top positions in its Chamber of Deputies are also being held by women.
Many of Rwanda’s goals in the “Vision 2020” plan have been realised. In education, the female literacy rate over the age of fifteen is higher than males. Rwanda has over 91.7% of its legal frameworks advancing gender equality, with a focus on the framework aimed at eliminating violence against women. In the global gender gap, Rwanda ranks sixth in the world. In comparison, the United States ranks 27th. NGOs have also thrived since 2006, including the Rwanda Women’s Network, which aims to ensure that all women have access to gender-based violence support, healthcare, and financial education.
The judicial system has also improved in prosecuting cases of violence against women. The Law on Prevention and Punishment of Gender-Based Violence has a penalty of 10-15 years’ imprisonment for general cases, 15-20 years if rape results in significant physical or mental harm along with requiring the perpetrator to cover the victim’s medical expenses, and life imprisonment if rape results in death. Rwanda has a high conviction rate for rape, with 72.4% of all reported cases brought to attention resulting in conviction and 92.9% of cases brought to the courts resulting in conviction. The harsh punishments and highly successful conviction rates represent a desire to conclusively move away from the era of systematic rape during the genocide.
Rwanda’s commitment to CEDAW is profound, yet the commitment does not translate to the daily lives of Rwandan women. The institutionalised subjugation and marginalisation of Rwandan women is still very present. 45% of women aged between 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes and the percentage of women older than fifteen who have experienced physical violence has increased from 35% to 37% between 2015-2020.
In 2010, a Demographic and Health survey found 57% of women believed that wife beating is justified. In the latest 2019-20 survey, that number had only dropped to 50%. This surprising statistic may explain why Rwanda is a world-leader in its commitment to women’s rights but has one of the highest incidences of gender-based and domestic violence in Africa. Grassroots initiatives are often more significant in progressing a country’s performance on women’s rights than the government. Without public support, it is very difficult to enact social change. In the other instances of successful developments in women’s rights discussed earlier in this article, national movements were the driving forces behind the successes, not the governments. Public support is crucial for the development of women’s rights; unfortunately, it appears Rwanda may need more time to cultivate it.
Glossary
Appeals Chamber: When a convicted person appeals against his sentencing, this chamber determines whether his sentence should be reversed or fixed. In other cases, this chamber reviews the sentence of a convicted person after two-thirds of their sentence (or 25 years for cases of life imprisonment) and determines whether it should be reduced.
Catastrophe: An event that causes significant and serious harm to people and/or countries.
Coercion: Persuading someone to do something by using force or threats
Consent: A willing agreement to engage in sexual behaviour given voluntarily
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW): The committee of experts that determine whether a country commits to its obligations to the Convention.
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW): An international treaty that commits signing states to undertake measures to end discrimination against women in all forms. In this article, the two CEDAWs are used interchangeably.
Crimes Against Humanity: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population
Domestic Violence: violent or aggressive behaviour within a home usually committed by a partner or spouse
Dowry: A gift of money, property, or other values given by a bride’s family to the groom’s family as part of a marriage
Futile: Doing something that has no effect or is useless.
Gender-Based Violence: violent acts perpetrated on women because they are women
Genocidaires: A reference to those who committed genocide against the Tutsi
Genocide: A coordinated plan aimed at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves
Grassroots Initiatives: Community based efforts to address local issues and advocate for change
HIV/AIDS: HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system and is spread through contact with certain bodily fluids infected with HIV; AIDS is the most advanced stage of an HIV infection
Interahamwe: Hutu militiamen who took part in the genocide
Kigali: The capital of Rwanda
Kinyarwanda: the language of Rwanda
Member States: States that are members of a treaty or organisation
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs): A non-profit organisation that works outside government control, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
Othered: anyone or anything perceived as distinct or different from oneself; usually meant negatively
Patriarchy: A system of society or government in which men hold power and women are excluded or marginalised from power.
Rape: Forceful penetration of a sexual nature against someone who is unwilling through violence or threatening behaviour
Ratified: Approved by the State to act on a treaty it has signed
Rwandan Chamber of Deputies: Established in 2003, this is where debates and votes on laws in Rwanda are held.
Rwandan Genocide: A genocide committed by the Hutu against the Tutsi between 7 April to 19 July 1994 that killed at least 800,000 Tutsi, or 77% of the population
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF): The RPF is the current ruling party in Rwanda. It was founded by exiled Rwandan Tutsis in Uganda in 1987 and began the Rwandan Civil War in 1990 to overthrow the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government.
Sexual Slavery: The enslavement of individuals in which they perform sexual acts against their will for their captors. This often occurs in armed conflict or in occupation by an invading army.
Social Norms: The shared expectations of how people should behave or act in a community
Stonewalled: To delay or block
Trial Chamber: This chamber determines whether the accused is innocent or guilty of the charges held against them.
United Nations: An international organisation founded in 1945 to maintain international peace, security, and developing friendships and human rights.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A document drafted by representatives of all regions of the world in 1948 that states all people have fundamental human rights which are universally protected.
Urunana rw’ Abanyarwandakazi mu Majyambere (URAMA): A movement for female development in Rwanda between 1991-1993 with the purpose of representing all women in Rwanda.
War Crime: A serious violation of the laws of war, such as murder, torture, or rape.