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Asserting Their Presence! Women’s Quest for Transitional Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Authored by: Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

Categories: Statebuilding
Sub-Categories: Democratization and Political Participation, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Security Sector Reform (SSR), Transitional Justice
Country: Rwanda
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa
Year: 2012
Citation: Mageza-Barthel, Rirhandu. "Asserting Their Presence! Women's Quest for Transitional Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda." In Gender in Transitional Justice, edited by Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Ruth Stanley, 163–90. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

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Executive Summary

Following the Rwandan genocide, which took place between April and July 1994, the country hosted a wide range of transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the atrocities including judicial measures such as national trials, and the gacaca tribunals which sought to render justice on a local level. The genocide claimed between 500,000 and 1 million lives of Tutsi and moderate Hutu, and it was highly gendered with 250,000 women raped, 60 per cent widowed, and many more displaced (Twagiramariya and Turshen, 1998: 102). Dealing with its aftermath remains a serious challenge on all levels.