Mukamana D, & Collins, A.

(2006)
Rape Survivors of the Rwandan genocide
International Journal of Critical Psychology
17, 140-166
Palgrave
Donatilla Mukamana & Anthony Collins
International Journal of Critical Psychology
Special edition: Critical Psychology in Africa
Editors:
G. Gobodo-Madikizela, P., Collins, A. & Eagle
2006 Vol 17, pp 140-166.
Palgrave Publishers Ltd. ISSN: 1464-0538
Rape survivors of the
Rwandan genocide
Donatilla Mukamana and
Anthony Collins
T
his study explores the experiences of rape survivors of the 1994
Rwandan genocide. The gender-based violence integral to this
genocide remains relatively undocumented, and is subject to social
taboos within Rwanda itself. This phenomenological investigation was based
on in depth semi-structured interviews exploring the lived experience of several
rape survivors. Common experiences emerged around the themes of terror,
ongoing physical and psychological trauma, changes in gender identity and
social position, and subsequent coping strategies. In addition to giving voice to
this silenced social group, the study identifies the need for further intervention,
while noting the positive personal and collective strategies already developed
by the survivors themselves.
Keywords: rape, sexual violence, genocide, war, Rwanda
In 1994 in Rwanda, a small country situated in the heart of Africa,
there occurred a genocide which was qualified by Human Rights
Watch (1996) as the fastest and most vicious genocide recorded in
human history. During the genocide, Rwandan morality was entirely
transformed; sanctioned by the democratically elected authorities and
collectively committed, the atrocities were represented as a moral
obligation. From 6 April to early July, the Hutu government of
Rwanda and its extremist allies succeeded in exterminating the
countrys Tutsi minority and politically moderate Hutu, using
firearms and variety of implements such as machetes (Lang, 2004). An
estimated number of 800,000 lives were lost in only 100 days. The
140 critical psychology
large majority of them were Tutsi. According to the Human Rights
Watch (1996), the Rwandan genocide was deliberately planned and the
Tutsi were systematically executed. Men and boys were murdered
while women and girls were raped. The United Nations estimated that
a quarter of a million women were raped (Amnesty international,
2004). Pro-femmes Twese Hamwe, a Rwandan womens organisation,
estimates that 90 per cent of Tutsi women survivors of the genocide
were raped (Rinaldo, 2004).
In Rwanda, rape and other gender-based violations carry a severe
social stigma. This stigma often dissuades women from seeking the
assistance that they need. Rwandan women who were raped did not
reveal their experience publicly, fearing that their families and
communities would reject them, and that they would never be able to
reintegrate socially or to marry. In Rwandan society, where women
are valued primarily for their role as wives and mothers, the issue of
marriage is extremely important. The silence surrounding rape
affects these women in many ways, but particularly with respect to
their sexual and reproductive health (Human Rights Watch, 1996).
The Rwandan rape survivors problems are aggravated by a sense of
isolation. They suffer from extreme guilt at having survived and been
raped, rather than having been executed. They are particularly
troubled by the lack of accountability for the abuse they suffered
(African Rights, 2004). While international agencies such as the UN,
Human Rights Watch and African Rights have brought attention to
the scale of the genocide and sexual violence, the rape survivors
themselves remain neglected and anonymous within their society for
a number of reasons including the taboos around confronting sexual
issues, the severe social stigma attached to sexual violation, and the
failure of Government policies and international aid programs to
allocate adequate resources to deal with the particular problems
facing Rwandan women survivors raped during the genocide (African
Rights, 2004). In addition there is a limited international expertise on
dealing with the sequelae of sexual violence in wartime, especially in
non-Western contexts.
Since the 1970s there has been a dramatic increase in the investi-
gation and understanding of sexual violence, including growing
psychological expertise in dealing with sexual survivors. This
growth was spearheaded by a rising feminist ethos, which first
exposed the high incidence of sexual violence (Russel, 1980) and
then began to develop appropriate therapeutic interventions. In 1971
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 141
Burgess and Holmstrom documented Rape Trauma Syndrome a
recurring cluster of responses to sexual violence. By 1980 this
growing body of work had been integrated into the broader diag-
nostic category of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, formalised in the
official international diagnostic texts (DSM, ICD). This continued
to expand as a major area of research and psychological expertise
(Herman, 1992) but, from the perspective of this study, several omis-
sions remain. Nearly all of this work was developed in one specific
context: Western society of the last thirty-five years, where sexual
victimisation of individuals tended to take place against a back-
ground of relative social stability and where certain levels of social
services and economic security could usually be taken for granted.
Moreover, this work tended to assume a Western experience of
subjectivity with culturally specific notions of the individual, of
appropriate modes of experiencing and expressing emotion, of
implicit cosmology and meaning systems, and of assumptions about
the relationships between the individual, family and broader social
networks.
These dominant understandings of sexual violence begin to weaken
when dealing with wartime, where communities rather than individ-
uals are attacked and the social fabric is directly threatened. Here rape
tends to be part of multiple simultaneous forms of violence including
mass murder, destruction of property and the disruption of the essen-
tial means of life such as shelter, food and water supplies, and medical
resources. In addition the family and broader community that might
ordinarily provide support in times of crisis maybe be damaged and
overwhelmed by the multiple crises it is facing.
The Western frameworks are even weaker when applied to devel-
oping countries where basic resources and social services may be
severely lacking and the material means for life cannot be taken for
granted. Further differences may exist in cultural specifics such as
meanings of sexual violence, modes of experiencing and articulating
traumatic crises, and conventional healing practices. All this creates a
very different context from that assumed by most western psychother-
apeutic approaches. It is precisely here that more investigation is
required, and this research aims to explore one specific context where
the received Western wisdom on survivors of sexual violence may be
inadequate.
In the case of Rwanda, widow survivors of the genocide created
AVEGA (Association des Veuves du Gnocide dAvril Association of the
142 critical psychology
Widows of the Genocide of April) in 1995 in order to address the needs
of women survivors and particularly to assist those who had been
widowed and/or raped. AVEGA members are assisted through a variety
of programs including financial aid, advocacy, job-training and psycho-
socio-medical programmes. This study focuses specifically on the
experiences of members of AVEGA.
The objectives of the study were to explore the experiences of the
women members of AVEGA raped during the 1994 Rwandan genocide,
how their gendered sense of self was affected by that experience, and
how they have subsequently dealt with having been raped. This study
also served to highlight those experiences which have not been
acknowledged by communities in which the women live, and it was
hoped that allowing the women to speak about their experiences in a
supportive environment would provide a space for transformation. The
information obtained was also intended to help the mental health
workers in Rwanda to gear their facilities appropriately to ensure that
the needs of these women are being met.
Rape of women during wartime
Sexual violence is a common part of military conquest, documented
from the earliest historical records to contemporary conflicts. Lerner
(1986) argues that men have treated women as spoils of war from the
first expansionist societies. Traditionally, women were raped and
kidnapped as part of military conquest, and forced to marry their
captors. The ancient Greek and Romans would rape and enslave
women after they had conquered a city: Rome was established with the
rape of Sabine women, and during the sack of Troy women were raped
by the victors (Tomaseli and Porter, 1986).
In modern times, rape by soldiers during wartime has become a
common phenomenon. In World Wars I and II rape was a weapon of
terror. Olujic (1999) explained how systematic and organised rape was
a tactic of war. Rape was a weapon of terror as the Germans marched
through Belgium in World War I. Gang rape was part of the orches-
trated riots of Kristallnacht which marked the beginning of the Nazi
campaign against the Jews. Rape was a weapon of revenge when the
Russian army marched to Berlin in World War II. Mills (1996)
describes how in December 1937, Japanese soldiers captured Chinas
capital, Nanking. Women were raped, forced to perform bizarre sexual
acts, then killed or turned into sex slaves. Chinese men were forced to
rape corpses. For American soldiers in the Vietnam War, rape was a
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 143
routine method to demonstrate their contempt for the people of
Vietnam (Eaton, 2000).
In recent conflict, most notably in Rwanda and in the former
Yugoslavia, women and girls were systematically raped as a policy of
war (Power, 2002). Power states that in Bosnia Herzegovina, tens of
thousands of Muslim and Croat women were systematically subjected
to sexual violence by Bosnian Serb forces during the genocide
campaign of ethnic cleansing. In Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of
Tutsi women were subjected to rape and sexual slavery during the
genocide. Hutu leaders ordered their troops to rape Tutsi women as
part of their genocidal campaign. Women and girls were subjected to
brutal forms of sexual violence, including sexual mutilation, after
which many of them were killed (Oosterved, 1998).
Madre (2004) argues that one of the most brutal and invisible
forms of mass violence is the systematic use of rape to serve political
ends. Like military violence, rape is a crime in perpetuity against
survivors as well as their families and communities, who endure the
repercussions indefinitely. Madre argues that because women are
situated at the centre of both family and cultural reproduction, they
become strategic targets when the aim is to eradicate a group of
people. Indeed, rape has been used in wars throughout history and
across the world to trigger a chain reaction of devastation that
destroys not only the individual woman, but also the fabric of
communities.
Arcel, Smalc and Kovacic (1995), who worked with raped women
after the war in former Yugoslavia, had found a lack of literature
concerning the long-term effects of rape in wartime. They discovered
that war rape survivors were polytraumatised and suffering from PTSD
(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). They mention that war rape was
never an isolated incident and, in the case of war rapes in former
Yugoslavia, and in Rwanda, mass rape was a part of organised violence
with physical and psychological torture. Women were raped by the
insertion of objects in their genital organs, threatened with knives
during intercourse, forced to remain naked, and made to witness others
being sexually tortured. The authors state that rape victims have a high
incidence PTSD, which can last from a few weeks to several years.
They maintain that long-term assessment shows that PTSD is a
chronic disorder for 17 per cent of the peacetime rape victims, even
fifteen years after the event.
144 critical psychology
Rape during the Rwandan genocide
Rape and other forms of violence were directed primarily against the
Tutsi women during the Rwandan genocide, because of both their
gender and their ethnicity. The extremist propaganda which exhorted
Hutu to commit the genocide specifically identified the sexuality of
Tutsi women as a means through which the Tutsi community sought to
infiltrate and control the Hutu community. Tutsi women were targeted
on the basis of the genocide propaganda which had portrayed them as
calculating seductress-spies bent on dominating and undermining the
Hutu. Tutsi women were also targeted because they had the social repu-
tation of being more beautiful and sexually desirable than Hutu women,
but inaccessible to Hutu men upon whom they allegedly looked down,
and for whom they were too good. Rape served to shatter these images
by humiliating, degrading, and ultimately destroying the Tutsi women
(Human Rights Watch, 1996). Human Rights Watch (1996) mentions
that some Hutu women were also targeted with rape because they were
affiliated with the political opposition, because they were married to
Tutsi men or because they protected Tutsi.
Many women were forced to live with their rapists. Forced marriages,
as this form of sexual slavery is often called in Rwanda, lasted through the
genocide, and in some cases even longer. A large number of women
became pregnant as a result of rape. Shanks (2000) mentions that the
effectiveness of rape as a weapon of war relies on the pervasive cultural
norms that value the sexual virtue of women. It is this perception of
public ownership of womens sexuality that makes it possible to translate
an attack against one woman into an attack against an entire community
or group. The impact is multiplied when the women become pregnant,
and the attack is then passed on to the next generation. Enforced preg-
nancy is used as a form of ethnic cleansing, because the woman is forced
to bear a child that has been ethnically cleansed by the blood of the
rapist. Shanks said that in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, it was esti-
mated that as many as 5000 babies were born to women as a result of rape.
African Rights (2004) reports that the victims of rape in Rwanda
suffer persistent health problems such as sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV/AIDS, and psychological problems as a result of the
injuries suffered from sexual violence they faced during the genocide.
Methodology
A phenomenological approach was used in this study to explore the
lived experience of women raped during the 1994 Rwandan
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 145
genocide. It examines how this experience affected their view of
themselves as women and explores how they have subsequently dealt
with the experience. The seven participants who participated in this
study included girls, married women and widows from different
backgrounds. The names used are pseudonyms chosen by the partic-
ipants themselves. The principle of theoretical saturation was
applied, in that the researcher collected the data until no new infor-
mation was evident.
The study was carried out in Rwanda in three different locations:
the psycho-socio-medical centre of AVEGA and the housing develop-
ments at Kimironko (both in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda) and at
Nyanza, 100 kilometres from Kigali. The health professionals from
AVEGA identified the potential participants and the researcher
approached them personally in order to invite them to participate will-
ingly in the study. Owing to the stigma associated with rape, women are
reluctant to talk about their experience or to be known in the commu-
nity as rape survivors. For this reason the women were contacted at
their own homes or at the psycho-socio-medical centre of AVEGA.
This centre of AVEGA was chosen as the site for this study as it brings
women survivors of the genocide together and thus enabled the
researcher to have access to these rape survivors in a safe environ-
ment. Women coming to this centre are not automatically labelled as
rape victims, as this centre offers a number of different services. The
women at Kimironko and Nyanza were contacted at their own homes
through the intermediary professional workers from AVEGA, who
already knew their residential addresses.
Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, and these
interviews were audio taped and later transcribed. The interview
schedule was translated from English to Kinyarwanda, which is the
mother tongue of the researcher and the participants. The recordings
were translated from Kinyarwanda to English by the researcher, with
the assistance of a professional translator. The transcribed interviews
were then analyzed using the seven stages of phenomenological
analysis outlined by Colaizzi (1978). The phenomenological approach
was chosen in order fulfil the primary task of documenting and
revealing the womens experiences, rather than seeking evidence of
causes, or explanations of the events. Using Colaizzis method, the
participants accounts were organised into themes, to show common
aspects of their experiences.
146 critical psychology
Discussion of the findings
From the multiple readings of the transcribed data different themes
emerged. These included: terror and torture, humiliation of being
raped, changes in womanhood, long-term effects of being raped, and
issues around dealing with the experience of being raped, including
coping strategies such the significance of religious faith and collective
support.
Terror and torture
The participants described in detail the events leading up to their
rape as well as the rape incidents themselves. They explained how
their experience was terrifying, contaminating and humiliating.
Rape was seen as an ultimate physical, psychological and moral
violation of the person. It was felt that the rapist wanted to terrorise,
dominate, and humiliate his victim, and to render her completely
helpless. The participants of this study were publicly raped, forced to
watch other women being raped, and made to witness the torture or
the death of their loved ones. The women were also psychologically
affected by the malicious words spoken by the militias during the
moment of rape.
Throughout the interviews the participants described how the
terror they experienced started from the moment that they were hunted
by the militias, until they were rescued by other women who learnt
about their condition or by the soldiers from the Rwandan Patriotic
Front who stopped the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The women reported
that being hunted, and knowing that if they were found they would be
raped and/or killed, was a terrifying experience.
The participants and their family members were hunted from
wherever they were hiding: their own homes, churches, and the bush.
Umutesi described her experience:
We were four girls and three boys hidden in the bush. The elder boy was
my brother. When we were found by interahamwe (militias) they said
that they would rape the girls and kill the boys. Then we were raped in
front of our brothers. During the genocide, if you paid 5000 Rwandan
francs you were killed by gun, if not you were tortured and hacked with
a machete until you died. As the boys had no money they were taken by
the interahamwe who told them to go and look for money if they wanted
not to be hacked with a machete. Later, after the genocide, I learnt that
my brother was killed at a slaughterhouse.
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 147
Out of solidarity, some women tried to hide their neighbours even
though they knew that they would be punished by doing so. Rape as a
form of torture was used as an act of punishment in order to discourage
any act of humanity towards the victims. Furaha, who was hidden by
her friend, said:
When the chief militia came he took my friend and put her in a small
house and began to rape her as punishment for hiding a Tutsi. When
my friend cried I intervened even though I walked with difficulty due
to my painful thigh wound. And I broke the door of the small house
where she was locked up with the militia. The militia stopped raping
her. He became furious; he said that he would kill me due to my arro-
gance. And I responded that I agreed because I wasnt scared of death
anymore. I added that I preferred to be killed rather than to be
tortured and assist where other people were tortured. The chief
militia replied that he wouldnt kill me instead he would rape me
every day until I die.
The rapists considered rape a profound torture and left women alive so
that they would suffer enduring pain and loss.
In addition to the injuries inflicted, the participants were also
affected by the verbal attacks of the militias such as the description of
the torture and the death of their loved ones. Umutesi was beaten,
brutally raped and left bleeding:
The militia who wanted to rape me asked me to tear off my clothes.
When I refused he cut my clothes and then he started to rape me. He
was very violent. It was my first intercourse, I lost a lot of blood, and it
was too painful. When I cried, the militia beat me and he said that it was
useless to cry because there was no mother to console me.
The same man told her that she would die of sadness as her all family
members had been killed. Olga described her distress when the
militias told her of the death of her father when they were raping her:
Some of them said that my father had killed himself and others said
that he was shot by his former friend when the militias wanted to
hack him with a machete. I will never know the truth about the death
of my dad.
The terrorising and the torture of the rape survivors caused them to
lose their will to live. They spoke of how they wished to be killed rather
148 critical psychology
than to be raped repeatedly as they thought that their death would put
an end to their torture. Furaha saw herself as a dead living person. Her
life had lost all meaning and she begged her abusers to kill her because
she had endured was worse than death:
During the genocide we were at the mercy of interahamwe/militias.
They beat us, raped us and fed us when they wanted to do so. I didnt
know how many times they raped me and how many interahamwe raped
me. I remember when I asked to them to kill me they refused.
Olga described her experience of rape as an eternal torture. The
militias raped her until they destroyed her gynaecological areas. They
continued raping her although she had pus in her vagina due to an
infection. Her back was also broken and she was unable to move. The
militias found her in the same position that she had been left in. She
refused to wash herself and to eat, as her only wish was to die. She
refused everything that she was offered by the militias to try and
provoke them to kill her as she had lost her will to live.
Humiliation
The participants said that there were no words that could convey the
magnitude of the humiliation they experienced, and they doubted that
any one could believe in their stories. Sharon (1994) states that for a
woman, being raped involves the loss of many things, such as the loss
of control of her own body and the loss of her dignity or value. To be a
woman in Rwandan society implies respect from all the members of the
community of which the woman is a part. Unfortunately, during the
1994 genocide, there was no respect for the values of the Rwandan
society. Women were humiliated by public rape, which was carried out
in the community by those people who were supposed to respect them,
such as their neighbours and children.
Fatuma and other women from her village were raped by children in
front their community, in the presence of their own husbands and
children. Fatuma said:
I refused to have sex with children. Then I was put on the floor and
immobilised by a militiaman in order to allow those children to rape
me. With the experience of rape I lost my value, my dignity as a mother
and a woman. I feel shamed, soiled and see myself as different from
other women. It is terrible to be raped. It is worse to be raped by the
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 149
kids who were supposed to respect you. I will never forget the humilia-
tion of being raped by the kids. It is so terrible. It is shameful.
Fatuma thought that because of the rape the respect from the members
of her community was lost. The participants emphasised the fact that
their public rape was the ultimate act of humiliation. Furaha reported:
The chief militia who caught me said that everyone who wanted to see
how sexually sweet Tutsi woman are, could have a taste. The myth
about the sexuality of Tutsi women, that they more sexually satisfying
than Hutu women (Human Right Watch, 1996), encouraged the rape of
Tutsi women during the genocide. Furaha continued by saying: Then
my clothes were torn off and thrown to the floor and I was raped. While
raping me they made comments. The first militia said that it was
special, it was warm, and the following one said that he didnt feel any
difference from a Hutu woman. Furaha continued further to say that
Normally the sexual act is an act of intimacy and pleasure and it is
done between the wife and her husband in privacy, but to me it was
done outside, by people that I didnt know, who came to test me as an
object of pleasure.
Martha described her thoughts:
You know when I got married, I was a virgin, I was twenty years old. My
husband is the only man I had sex with in my life; but during the
genocide it was so terrible to have sex with strangers. The militias
humiliated me; they considered me as a sexual object not as a human
being. Those interahamwe were crazy. How can two or three men have
sex with the same woman one after the other? I will never understand,
I dont know if they enjoyed raping me.
Ingrid explained: That experience is so shameful. I was humiliated. It
is indescribable how the rape humiliated me. If you have not been
raped you cant understand what rape means. You imagine having sex
with two different men as a prostitute does. The image of the prosti-
tute was often by the victims to illustrate how they were humiliated
and shamed by their experience of rape, as prostitution is considered as
embarrassing, shameful, and dirty (Baker, 2002). Richters (1998) argues
that rape is not an act of sexual pleasure but rather an act of violence
implemented by sexual means. The source of satisfaction for the perpe-
trator is the humiliation and degradation of the victim. The
testimonies of the women who participated in this study show how the
150 critical psychology
rape they experienced was an act of degradation and humiliation
toward their persons and their community rather than a matter of
sexual pleasure for the men who raped them.
Changes in womanhood
The rape experienced by the participants changed the way in which
they view themselves as women. Women and girls explained those
changes in womanhood differently. To the women it was expressed by
the changes that had occurred in their intimate relationships. The girls
found that the experience of rape had changed their identity.
In their intimate relationships, the communication between the
women and their partners was affected by the womens inability to
disclose their experience. This difficulty was enforced by cultural
taboos around confessing to the husband that rape had occurred, since
rape is considered in Rwandan society as dishonour for both the
woman and her husband. After the genocide the raped women were
considered as accomplices in the rape (Human Rights Watch, 1996).
Some of the women preferred to lie to their partners and told them that
they had not been raped. Ingabire explained her worries about being
rejected by her husband if he had known that she was raped.
My husband was a survivor and an orphan of the genocide. When we
met we loved each other and we got married. Sometimes he asked me if
I was raped during the genocide as other women survivors of the 1994
genocide and I said that I was not raped. I didnt tell him the truth
because I was scared that he would reject me.
The participants also expressed the change of womanhood through and
aversion to sexual intimacy. Martha mentioned:
that rape changed me as a woman because now I have an aversion to
men. I cannot be close with any man, because he reminds me what men
did to me during the genocide. Sometimes I wonder how difficult it
would have been, if my husband had survived the genocide and I
refused to make love with him, because of my aversion to men.
Psychological researchers have previously documented that sexual
intimacy after rape is very difficult to achieve, as the rape survivor
projects her negative feelings toward her abuser to all men, even if they
were very close, for instance, a husband (Baker, 2002). Fatuma, who
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 151
survived with her husband, experienced conflict in her marriage owing
to her difficulty with sexual intimacy. She said, I feel diminished as a
woman owing to my difficulty to have sex with my husband. My
problem became worse when my husband didnt understand my
reaction and thought that I didnt love him.
Several participants in the study revealed that due to the rapes they
were now HIV positive. Despite the importance of talking about HIV
infection with their intimate partners, this was generally found to be
extremely difficult. Furaha described her husbands refusal to have sex
with her since he didnt want to use condoms anymore. She explained
how that issue had destroyed their relationship.
When I was married, my husband knew that I was infected with HIV
and he was very supportive to me. We used to have sex with a condom
and were both satisfied, but then he said that he was tired of having sex
to me, as he was obliged to use a condom. He became easily irritated
when I was talking to him. He said that he regretted being married to a
woman who was infected with HIV and he threatened to break up our
marriage.
Furaha went further to explain that her husband now wanted children
and this was not possible with her.
According to the testimonies of girls raped during the genocide,
losing their virginity led to a loss of identity. The meaning of human
experience is always interpreted according to the values of the socio-
cultural context of which the individual is part (Louw, Edwards,
Foster, Gilbert, Norton, Plug and Spangenberg, 1997). This loss of
identity, which was linked to the loss of virginity, was influenced by the
meaning attributed to being girl or a woman in Rwandan society. Jessor
and Jessor (1975) state that in virtually every society, the first time a
young woman has sex with a partner it is seen as a major social and
sexual transition, a rite of passage constituting part of an irreversible
journey from childhood to adult life. In Rwandan society this sexual
transition is celebrated within a marriage and from that moment the
girl is called a woman.
The Rwandan girls perceived their virginity as an important aspect
of their identity. Particularly in Rwanda, where sex is only legitimate
in marriage, girls were supposed to lose their virginity only when
married and they would then be called women. By losing their
virginity through rape, girls were confronted with the problem of
152 critical psychology
belonging to neither the social group of women nor the social group of
girls. The loss of identity experienced by some of the participants of the
study had affected their suitability for marriage as well as their social
interactions. This was illustrated by Umutesi who said: The experi-
ence of being raped had changed my life. I didnt feel like a girl because
I am not virgin, but I am not a woman either, because I have no
husband and I know no one will agree to marry a girl who is not virgin.
Olga also said:
With that rape I lost my identity as a girl. When a friend of mine invites
me to a party I cant go. I used to attend parties before the genocide but
now I prefer not to go there because I dont know if when I go I have to
be with the girls or with the women. I am not a girl and I am not a
woman. I dont know who really I am!
Long-term effects of being raped
The long-term effects experienced by the women who were raped
included various physical problems, PTSD, and stigma about rape and
HIV infection. Worry about the future of their children was a main
concern for the participants.
Physical effects
Despite the passage of years since they were raped, the participants
described ongoing health problems as result of their experiences. Even
though back pains and sequelae from gynaecological injuries were
reported, HIV infections remained the most significant physical effect.
Post et al. (2002) have found that factors such as vaginal tearing or
other injuries which occur during rape increase the risk of transmis-
sion in cases where the perpetrator is HIV positive. AVEGA reported
in its 2001 survey carried that 70 per cent of the rape survivors had
tested positive for HIV (African Rights, 2004). The high rate of HIV
could be explained by the fact that during the Rwandan genocide HIV
was deliberate weapon to inflict pain and suffering (Donavan, 2002).
The fact that a substantial number of women were raped more than
once, and by different men, makes it inevitable that many contracted
HIV (African Rights, 2004).
Olga was a virgin when a gang of militias raped her. The militias,
who regularly came to rape her, locked her up in a small house. She
experienced severe injuries to her genital areas caused by her experi-
ence of rape. Olga explains: I was very ill with pus in my genital
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 153
areas. I was scared that I would never recover. The woman who
rescued me treated me with warm water and traditional herbs until I
recovered. I pray that God blesses that woman. Unfortunately Olga
later tested HIV positive. Since 1994 Furaha has experienced
problems walking due to the injuries she had from being shot in her
thigh, and the pain in her back as a result of the physical torture that
she endured during her experience of rape. In addition she was
infected with HIV. Infertility was also reported as a consequence of
being raped. After her experience of rape Fatuma contracted gonor-
rhoea, for which she didnt receive prompt or effective treatment. As
result, when she wanted to become pregnant, the midwife told her
that it was impossible because her fallopian tubes were damaged by
the gonorrhoea.
Psychological effects
Some rape survivors who participated in this study were severely
psychologically traumatised. Umutesi was fifteen years old when she
was raped. Recently she stopped her studies due to the flashbacks to
her experience of rape. She said:
In this period I have a lot of difficulty in dealing with my experience of
the genocide. I have flashbacks during the day and at night I have night-
mares. With the image of my family who were killed I cry, but when it
is the picture of the experience of rape I feel fear and pain in my tummy.
And with that nightmare I cant sleep again until the morning. Due to
those flashbacks I suspended my studies because when those flashbacks
came during the class I cried or screamed.
Herman (2001) notes that long after the danger is past, traumatised
people can relive the event as though it were continually recurring in
the present. The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal
form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciousness, both
as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares
during sleep.
The participants were angry whilst talking about their inability to
forget, to grieve the loss from rape, and the inability to forgive their
rapists. Rape is a terrible thing, you cant forget it. I will never
pardon the militias for what they have done to me and the other
women of my village (Fatuma). Martha had lost her son and her
husband during the genocide.
154 critical psychology
What the militias did to me I will never forget and I will never pardon
them. I have hate in my heart and that destroys me. I will hate those
militias all my life; you know, to be a widow and to lose children is a
very painful experience, but I cant compare it with rape. After the
genocide I cried a lot about the death of my husband and my son. Day
after day I continue to grieve the loss of those loved ones. With rape I
can never grieve because the experience is always with me. The marks
are on my body; the experience is never out of my memory.
Studies (Burgess 1985; Sharon 1994; Herman 2001 and Baker 2002)
had shown that raped women do not forget their experience of rape, but
they learn how to live with it. The ability to forgive and to grieve,
however, is possible only when the harm inflicted to the victims is
recognised and action is taken for reparation. Unfortunately that
process became difficult in Rwandan society where rape is a taboo
subject. According to the participants testimonies there was no
acknowledgment of their loss and no perpetrator was made accountable
for the crimes committed, as the victims didnt talk about their experi-
ence due to the stigma and the lack of accountability with which they
were confronted.
After the 1994 Rwandan genocide there were organised rituals of
mourning for people who had lost their loved. People were allowed to
express their emotions, such as anger or sorrow. In that process of thera-
peutic catharsis they were able to benefit from the sympathy and much
needed support from their community members. The perpetrators were
also arrested, made accountable and punished for the crimes they had
committed. That process allowed people to grieve for the loss of their
loved ones. But no ceremony was carried out for the victims of rape. A
need for this type of process has been clearly noted by those working with
rape survivors: Rape is loss. Like death, it is best treated with a period of
mourning and grief. Social ceremonies for rape should be developed:
rituals that, like funerals and wakes, would allow the mourners to recover
the spirits that the rapist, like death, steals (Metzger, 1976:406).
Psychological distress among the girl participants who were raped
was magnified by their inability to talk about their experience, since
they feared that they would be stigmatised as they were no longer
virgins and thus not eligible for marriage. Since in Rwandan society
the value of a woman is being a wife and a mother, Umutesi had lost
hope: I have lost hope in the future. How could life have meaning
without kids, without a husband?.
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 155
During the period of the interviews Furaha expressed depressive
feelings:
Nowadays I feel very depressed, and cry when I think about what is
happened to me during the genocide. I talked to the counsellor from
AVEGA but she told me that these are normal feelings due to what I
endured during the genocide, you know, after being raped. I have
thoughts about killing myself. Even now, I think that if I didnt have
children who still need me to grow up I would have killed myself.
The literature has documented that the suicidal ideation from depres-
sive mothers was abated after they aimed their life goals toward
responsibility for their infants well-being. The infants were identified
as the most powerful source of the mothers inspiration for staying
alive (Veena, 2001). Resick et al. (2001), however, in working with
women who had been raped, found that some depressed women who
had thought of killing themselves later indeed committed suicide. The
researcher thus referred participants who were suffering from depres-
sion or PTSD to professional specialists.
The participants who were infected with HIV/AIDS said that they
had no future, as they didnt expect to live much longer. During the
genocide Ingabire lost her all family members and her house was
demolished. She was raped and infected with HIV. She said,
Sometimes I dont know if my sadness is due to the fact that I have no
family members who survived the genocide, if it is that I lost my
husband, or that I will die from AIDS. Richters (1998) mentions that
women who were raped during wartime were suffering from multiple
traumatisation and rape trauma combines with other traumas such as
the loss of husbands, children, parents, relatives, home, health, liveli-
hood and community. These factors work together to form a complex
and sometimes intractable nexus of trauma.
Social effects
The women expressed the social effects of being raped in different
ways. The future for their children was a primary concern, since the
children of rape were not accepted by their relatives, and these children
who had HIV infected mothers were facing an uncertain future.
Children resulting from rape were seen as difficult to integrate into
Rwandan society. Arcel, Smalc and Kovacic (1995), who worked with
the rape survivors who became pregnant during the war in Bosnia
156 critical psychology
Herzegovina in 1992, reported that many children of rape were aban-
doned by their mothers or left for adoption. In some cases
maltreatment and infanticide of those children were not reported as
they were not considered as the fruit of mutual love, but of aggression,
which is to be repressed, and forgotten.
In Rwanda children of rape were a source of conflict amongst their
families because they were a permanent reminder of what had
happened during the genocide. Some mothers called their children
little killers as they were born from the militias who had killed their
family members (Wax, 2004). In contrast, one participant of this study
reported that she accepted and loved her child of rape. Ingrid got
pregnant from her experience of rape and gave birth to Bonita. Due to
her health problems she didnt expect to live long and her greatest
fears were for Bonita. I am wondering who will bring her up after my
death. My aunt who survived the genocide doesnt like my child as I
do. She said that it will be an eternal torture to bring up an intera-
hamwes child as she will remind her how the interahamwe have
decimated our family.
For mothers infected with HIV/AIDS the prospect of death was
intolerable when they thought about their childrens future. The
problem was exacerbated by the fact that these women were the sole
survivors of their families and there would be no one else to look after
the children. Martha explained: From the experience of rape I got
AIDS. I could die at any time. My two kids will be orphans without a
safe future. Even though Ingabire was worried about her HIV/AIDS
and her death that she said was coming nearer, she was doing her best
to run a small business in order to provide for the needs of her son. In
order to ensure a safe future for her child, she had started to build a
house for her son and she was being helped by AVEGA. Feelings of
attachment, a sense of devotion in caring for the infants, were observed
amongst the mothers who were infected with HIV/AIDS (Veena, 2001).
Ingabire said: When I will die someone who will take care of my son
will rent the house and then the money will be used for feeding and
schooling my child.
Social stigma was also a problem encountered by the rape survivors
in Rwandan society (African Rights, 2004). Women are stigmatised and
shamed when the community discovers the rape. Furaha said:
There is a great need to inform the Rwandan society about what it
meant to be raped during the genocide because they have many
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 157
misconceptions. It is a big problem to be known as rape survivor in
the community. They dont respect you, they ostracise you, people say
that we were no different from prostitutes because we accepted
having sex with any man who wanted to have sex with us during the
genocide.
Dealing with the experience of being raped
Religious beliefs, talking about the rape, and belonging to associations
such as AVEGA have been found to be effective ways of dealing with
the experience.
Religious beliefs
Survivors of atrocities who are religious were found to be more resilient
in adapting to their difficult conditions resulting from the traumatic
events they have experienced. They manage to find positive aspects to
having survived such experiences. They tend to be more optimistic in
their approach to life and look for meaning in any positive or negative
life event (Simon, 2000). Ingrid attributed her child from rape to Gods
will and her survival to Gods miracle. She said:
You know my child is a result of rape, that is Gods will, you know, I am
thankful to God for my child. She is my only joy and my best
companion. To me it is a miracle to have survived. All members of my
family were killed. Maybe God had a reason in saving me, you know.
God is my solace. I prayed a lot and that helped me to cope with my
difficult situation.
Prayers were found to play an important role in the lives of the partic-
ipants as they provide a framework for finding meaningfulness in a life
that had been unfair. The participants often highlighted prayer as
strategy that they used in order to deal with their painful situation.
Despite all she had experienced Martha felt that she was still strong
due to the power of God. During and after the genocide I hated God
and everyone. Later, I learnt from the Bible that if we trust in God he
will help us to bear our burden and console us because he loves us. I
prayed a lot and God helped me to cope with my situation. God is really
my strength. Pfeifer and Waelty (1999) mentioned that people who
used prayer as a coping mechanism were likely to exhibit a higher level
of adjustment than others who did not.
Janoff-Bulman (1992) has shown how much of the psychological
158 critical psychology
damage of trauma lies in the breaking-down of essential assumptions
about life: the safety, predictability and meaningfulness of the world,
the effectiveness of ones own strategies for dealing with crises, the
protective and supportive function of the social community. In this
light, one of the essential functions of religion is to provide an over-
arching explanatory framework that allows people to make sense of
extremely distressing events and place them in a broader interpreta-
tive context, such as Gods inscrutable but ultimately benign plans,
or the promise of rewards in an afterlife. Researchers such as
Ganzevoort (1998) and Pargament (1997) how show that this kind of
faith can provide a very effective buffer against the danger that the
traumatic events will leave the survivor with a damaging sense of the
overwhelming brutality, unpredictability and meaninglessness of
life. But Herman (2001) also cautions of the possibility the traumatic
event can destroy religious faith, leaving the survivor feeling
rejected by God and the universe, and thus suffering an even deeper
shattering of belief and sense of abandonment. An important factor
here whether the religious faith is a sustained practice reinforced my
supportive social networks that enable the social reintegration of
survivors.
Talking about rape
From a psychological perspective, talking about a difficult experience
is typically accepted to be one of the healthiest ways of coming to
terms with it although this is by no means a universal cultural belief
(Hassan, 2001). The participants confirmed that talking helped them
to feel relieved when their pain from rape became unbearable. Some
participants however, talked about their experience for the first time
while being interviewed by the researcher. They said that they had
felt ashamed to disclose their rape and they thought that people
would not believe their stories or would not be interested in hearing
about their experience. Although Fatumas disclosure of her rape
experience was difficult, she felt relieved when she talked about it.
She said: You know, it is not easy to talk about rape. One day I was
scared that I would become crazy by thinking about that rape every
time. I was surprised to feel relieved when I discussed my experience
with a friend of mine.
As was evident from the womens testimonies and from listening to
them talking about their experience, it was important to them that
their pain from the rape was recognised. We feel comforted to share
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 159
our experience with other women whom we found were concerned
about our condition; by participating in this research the suffering of
women raped during the genocide will be known and recognised. The
researcher found that believing the participants stories and taking
them seriously was a great comfort to them. They further expressed
gratitude that this research project might bring their experiences and
those of their fellow survivors to the attention of many more people.
Belonging to AVEGA and other social associations
The 1994 Rwandan genocide destroyed the individuals support
networks. Participants lost a great number of the members of their
community, some of them lost all their family members. Bringing rape
survivors together in an association like AVEGA allowed them to re-
create a community for themselves. Participants considered AVEGA
as their new family, and this restored their sense of belonging. In
addition, the members collectively served to act as a replacement
family for those who were killed during the 1994 genocide. AVEGA
helped the participants to overcome their sense of isolation and
despair, and gave them medical, psychological and material help.
AVEGA encouraged its members to support one another, and this was
demonstrated by the initiative taken by some of the participants who
had created an association to meet the needs of the women from their
own community.
Ingrid and Ingabire were members of AVEGA who formed a
network to help their peers overcome some of the problems they
encountered on a daily basis, such as stigma and poverty. They were
determined to fight the stigma facing women rape survivors by talking
about their experiences at different meetings in their community. As
they were fervent Christians they used to give their testimonies in the
church. Ingrid said: With the members of my association we campaign
against the stigma on rape and HIV infection, and it works. Ingrid and
Ingabire, along with eight other women of their village, were part of a
basket-making project that allowed them to raise money for their
families. Ingrid said: We are determined to retain the little dignity left
us by the humiliation from rape. We cannot live on assistance, because
those who raped us and killed our relatives would be happy to see us
impoverished and suffering. This basket-making project was not only
a place of work but also a place where woman came together and shared
their suffering.
As rape is a taboo subject in Rwandan society rape survivors feel
160 critical psychology
supported and accepted when telling their stories to a person who has
gone through the same experience. Ingabire said, What was the most
important aspect in our association was that we shared our suffering
and understood each other, as we have all gone through the same expe-
rience. That sharing allows us to accept our situation a little bit. It is
very comforting when someone understands your problem, telling you
that you are not alone. Hassan (2003) mentions that through associa-
tions survivors of atrocities are allowed to feel that they belong, and
that they are also normalised in that group. They gain strength from
each other; they have an identity and a way to find a collective voice.
But associations such as AVEGA should not simply be seen as
psychotherapeutic encounter groups, but also vital social and
economic support networks in the context of stigma and severe
economic hardship.
Herman (2001) emphasises that solidarity amongst victims of atroc-
ities such as rape provides the strongest protection against terror,
despair, shame and stigma. Indeed, the emergence of trauma studies
from the 1960s onwards arose less from discoveries in psychology, than
by the emergence of spontaneous social networks amongst survivors.
Of particular note here are the rap groups developed by US veterans
of the Vietnam war, who come together to share their experiences of
war trauma outside of the official medical and military establishments,
and the formation of feminist consciousness-raising groups which
allowed women to share their tabooed experiences of sexual and other
gender-based violence, and to begin to recognise these as systemic
social, rather than simply a personal, problems. Both these movements
proved highly effective and directly contributed to the official recogni-
tion of the notion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1980, as well as
providing a major thrust to social mobilisation against both war and
violence against women (Herman 2001).
Conclusion
The women who participated in this study had suffered numerous
losses and traumatic experiences. Although most of them had many
problems, such as chronic PTSD and HIV/AIDS, to a large extent they
succeeded in maintaining functional lives. The future of their children
was a great concern for the participants. As is apparent from these
womens testimonies, the associations they have created are valuable
initiatives through which they have found support with one another
can resolve some of their problems. Nonetheless the horrors reported
rape survivors of the rwandan genocide 161
in this study challenge us to find ways to tackle the continuing inter-
national use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and to develop
contextually appropriate ways to assist survivors with the complex
social and material consequences of their multiple traumas.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the women of AVEGA who participated in this
study, and whose courage and commitment are an inspiration to all
those moving beyond violence and destructiveness to creating a new
future.
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