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Published: 1 April 2009
Rwandan women testify
This Tuesday, 7th April, it is exactly fifteen years since the Rwandan genocide started. Senior researcher Anne-Marie de Brouwer talked to the survivors and recorded their horrific memories in the book, The men who killed me.
Lieke Meertens
"At some point, a FAR soldier picked me out of the group and took me to a nearby bush. I don't know what happened to the other girls I was with. This soldier raped me. After he was done with me, he took me to a house and told the owners of the house to keep me safe, so that he could rape me every time he came. He told them if anything happened to me he would kill them. Every time he came to the house after that, he took me to the forest to rape me. Over five days, I was raped five times a day."..."The local people, an Interahamwe militia man and other Hutu would watch the soldier rape me and did not even raise their little finger to stop it. They didn't care, because I was Tutsi."
This is a short excerpt from Marie Louise Niyobuhungiro's (1975) testimonial in the book, The men who killed me: Rwandan survivors of sexual violence. She is one of the seventeen survivors who reveals her shocking experiences of the one hundred days of Rwandan genocide in 1994, when an estimated 250,000 to 500,000, mostly Tutsi woman and girls were raped with brute force. The title of the book refers to the situation in which the survivors still live. "About seventy per cent of the survivors of sexual violence have HIV/AIDS and many are, therefore, dying a slow death. All the dreams they once cherished are now forever lost", Anne-Marie de Brouwer, associate professor at the department of criminal law, and senior researcher with the International Victimology Institute Tilburg (INTERVICT), explains.
De Brouwer's interest in sexual violence in times of war finds its origin in her studies in human rights law in the UK and an internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. It was the first time worldwide that an international tribunal paid any real attention to sexual violence. "I was deeply moved by this. How is it possible that sexual violence has long not been seen as a crime, but just as a by-product of war?" This fascination led to a PhD thesis, for which she researched how the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda as well as the International Criminal Court deal or have dealt with sexual violence crimes.
Having visited Rwanda several times, she talked to survivors living in miserable poverty, in houses about to collapse, with women who are HIV-positive and extremely traumatized because of the sexual violence they endured, with children who can't go to school. At some point De Brouwer felt she needed to do something tangible for these women. "For me it was all about understanding our common humanity, to help those who had suffered so much." Together with her partner Freek Dekkers, an economist who became intrigued by her stories and the country, she set up the foundation Mukomeze last year, which means 'empower her' in the national language of Rwanda. Through Mukomeze she aims to improve the lives of women who were raped and abused during the Rwanda genocide, in multiple ways: physically, psychologically, materially, socially and spiritually. "I try to create more awareness of their plight in the world, and to make the victims more self-sufficient. They don't just get money, but we make sure they can, for example, start their own business. I want to empower them."
The idea of writing a book about the genocide survivors in Rwanda had been in De Brouwer's mind for a while, but got stronger when she discussed this idea with her Canadian co-author and former colleague at a women's human rights organisation in The Hague, Sandra Ka Hon Chu. "The women in Rwanda told me they felt the need to tell their story, and they wanted acknowledgement for what had happened to them. 'I want the world to know the genocide is still going on in our lives and heads', one woman told me."
The interviews required a change of mindset for jurists De Brouwer and Sandra Ka Hon Chu, for they weren't used to interviewing people suffering from such extreme trauma. "In the beginning I was hesitant to ask every detail, I thought it was too intrusive. But the women didn't think so. They find it important to talk openly about everything." For the victims it became a psychological, but empowering, process; for De Brouwer an intense one. "For two weeks, we had non-stop interviews. Sometimes twelve hours straight. In the evenings we processed all the information." The testimonial of a woman named Pascasi was one that really struck De Brouwer. For weeks Pascasi hid in bushes. At some point she was discovered by fifty men, who all raped her. When she escaped she was caught again and locked in a house, where she was raped by different men each day for two weeks. "During that period, it was very cold. She was only wearing ragged underwear. She literally felt this when she told me the story, and was shivering all over her body."
To deal with all the emotions, De Brouwer mostly talked about it a lot with other people. However, she didn't let it get to her too much. "It isn't about me; it's not me who feels all these emotions, it's about the survivors. Of course it makes me sad, but most of all disturbed and angry. I think that is important. Anger means you don't close your eyes to it. Besides, this feeling gives me the adrenaline to really do something for these women". [LM]
On 7th April, at 16:00 hours, The men who killed me will be launched in the Zwijsen building of the Centre for Science and Values, together with the opening of a photo-exhibition of the survivors. You can buy the book there, or by sending an e-mail to info@mukomeze.nl. Proceeds from the book and photograph sales go to Mukomeze, www.mukomeze.nl. For more information about the book, see Men who killed me
Send your reaction to:
univers@uvt.nl
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