Many Women Survivors Of Rwanda Massacre Face Grim Future

by Rachel Rinaldo

(IPS) KIGALI -- Mamerthe Karuhimbi was 19 when the killers came to her home in the Rwandan town of Nyamata a decade ago.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, was shot down over the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

Shortly after that, a wave of violence spilled over the tiny central African country as officials and hardline members of the Hutu majority embarked on a killing spree that targeted minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Karuhumbi escaped numerous attacks, fleeing a church where thousands were massacred, and running from a maternity hospital where the militia slaughtered newborn babies. She finally took shelter in the bush, but not before she was raped and saw her friend hacked to death with a machete.

Of the 12 people in her immediate family, only Karuhimbi and her mother survived. But ten years later she has little hope for her future. "I have no life because I don't have a family or children," Karuhumbi told IPS.

Her words are echoed by Elizabeth Onyango, Program Coordinator for African Rights -- a non-governmental group based in Kigali and London. "A lot of them see themselves as dead already," she said. "They are actually quite confused about whether they're happy to be alive or not. As survivors, there is always the question of 'Why am I alive?'"

As Rwanda commemorates the tenth anniversary of the genocide this week with the opening of a memorial center in Kigali on Apr. 7, many women survivors like Karuhimbi are still dealing with the poisonous legacies of the 100-day massacre.

Estimates vary about how many were killed in the genocide, but the Rwandan Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture, Robert Bayigamba, said last week that 937,000 bodies had been recovered, and that more were expected to be found. Other sources put the death toll at 800,000.

One of the most pressing problems that women survivors face is poverty - as many lost everything they had.

"They don't have houses, they are poor, they are very vulnerable and they can't find money for their children," said Aurea Kayiganwa of Avega-Agahozo, an association of genocide widows. A number of women who had their limbs amputated during the killings also face the added burden of disability.

What has made matters worse, adds Kayiganwa, is that many of those responsible for the killings -- the so-called "genocidaires" -- are now relatively well off.

"When you lose your husband and you have no children to take care of, it's not easy to feel okay in the community. The big problem is that the woman survivor is poor, but the former militia member is okay. He has his family or children. He is rich, he has a house," she observes.

According to the Canadian International Development Agency, Rwanda is one of the world's most impoverished countries, with a per capita gross national income of just $230. The majority of its population of just over eight million lives on less than a dollar a day, making women survivors the poorest of the poor.

The sexual abuse that occurred during the genocide has also left scars. An umbrella organization for women's groups in Rwanda, Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe, estimates that 90 percent of Tutsi women were raped, although most have never reported it.

"Rape was a tool of genocide," says Maria Immaculee Ingabire, Media Officer for Pro-Femmes. "There were many rapes, systematically."

In addition, many more women -- both Hutu and Tutsi -- were raped in the refugee camps that sprang up in Congo-Kinshasa, Tanzania, and Uganda, as millions fled the advance of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) during the genocide.

The RPF, consisting mostly of Tutsis, had started attacking Rwanda's Hutu-dominated government in 1990, although a peace accord was struck in 1993. As news of the genocide spread, the RPF renewed its offensive, ultimately taking control of Rwanda. Human rights groups say the group was responsible for its own share of abuses as it pursued Hutu militants, many of whom had banded together in the "interahamwe" militias. (Interahamwe means "those who stand or attack together.")

In conservative Rwanda, activists say, it is extremely difficult for women to speak about rape.

"If you are raped, Rwandan society can't understand that you are a victim," Ingabire told IPS. Moreover, women who are raped may never be able to get married because of the stigma attached to them.

Many women were gang-raped and did not know their attackers, which made it even harder for them to testify or report the crime. As if that were not enough, several rape survivors have also begun to test positive for HIV in recent years.

African Rights recently conducted a study of 201 women genocide survivors in Rwanda and the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, the results of which will be released later this month.

All of the women had been raped, and a large number were HIV-positive. Others were also likely to have contracted the virus, but had never been tested, says Onyango: many simply did not want to know their status.

"Most of them were ailing in one form or another, but you can't tell what they have," she noted. "It's difficult to correlate. Do you know if the HIV came about directly because of this rape? You don't always know."

Not surprisingly, most HIV-positive survivors have little access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to help them withstand AIDS-related illnesses. Onyango says none of the women in the African Rights study was on regular ARV treatment. Although the cost of the medication has fallen to about 30 dollars per month in Rwanda, that is still far above the means of most people living in the country.

Avega-Agahozo runs an HIV clinic for about 600 of its members who are living with HIV, but they only have funds to provide ARVs for 22 women. "Those who are HIV positive die one by one," said Kayiganwa. "Every month we have some women who die because we can't have ARVs for everyone, and they are all over the country."

The consensus of most organizations that work with genocide survivors in Rwanda is that is not enough international funding is available to help those who lived through the genocide.

Pro-Femmes is currently pushing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, and the United Nations to provide free ARVs for women survivors so that they can live long enough to give testimony about their experiences. The genocide suspects on trial in Arusha are already being given free ARVs, according to Ingabire.

Kayiganwa adds that although many donors were on hand in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 killings, Avega-Agahozo has depended on three main funders since 1999.

As orphans reach their teenage years, and children born of rape start asking about their fathers, the need for aid programs has increased. "What we want now, ten years after, we want people to help the victims of genocide," said Kayiganwa. "Genocide is an international crime, so people have to help us and have solidarity because we are living in a sad situation."

But, despite these grim realities, some activists are cautiously hopeful about the future.

A number of women who have become aware of their HIV status have started to speak about their genocide experiences more openly. Ingabire says Hutu and Tutsi women have also found common ground through their experiences of rape.

Women representatives now make up 48 percent of the Rwandan parliament, the highest percentage of female legislators in the world, and Ingabire believes women are finding their voice in the country.

"Women know that in a conflict situation they are the first victims," she told IPS. "So they have a responsibility to fight violence."