Category: Opinion

By: Supreetha Gubbala

Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. This seems to be the policy of the women who participated in the 2004 National Research on Violence Against Women, conducted by the MIGEPROF in conjunction with USAID.

The most startling result revealing that if domestic violence should occur, 71% of Rwandan women would not take any significant measures to stop it.

The report also revealed that Rwandan women today are facing two main types of gender-based violence: Domestic and Community Violence. In summary, one committed by the partner, and one that is not.

With approximately 13% of women being victims of at least one act of physical violence and as many as 1 in every 4 women being victims of sexual violence between 1999-2004.

In regards to the married women, 40% of women reported suffering from domestic violence more than three times a year, with 17% reporting an injury or broken bone as a result. Out of those injured only 8% have sought for medical attention.

In fact almost half (46%) of the women who have experienced domestic violence never told a soul, with less than 1 percent ever going to the police.

Perhaps this is because over 40% attributed abuse to excessive drinking or money issues. But perhaps, it is due to greater societal barriers and attitudes that still exist today.

Domestic violence seems to be the currently dominating type of GBV in Rwanda, with violence increasing along with the number of children in a household.

Among the women who have experienced violence in their homes over half prefer to pray or forget. Despite alternative causes for this reaction, much may lie in the way gender roles are constructed in Rwanda

Gender roles in Rwanda reflect the specific beliefs and expectations that many African societies assign to women, men, boys and girls on the basis of their sex.

UnityClub Analysis of Rwandan Culture as an Engine to Sustainable Development in Rwanda (2010) revealed that the ideal Rwandese woman was described using the following adjectives: “Calmness, softness, kindness, decency, discretion, endurance, patience, faithfulness and tolerance.”

Whereas an ideal Rwandese man is defined by “authority, leadership, self-control, business management, pride, seriousness, dignity, solidarity, hardworker, patriotic, noble by heart and higher ambitions of honestly, justice and truthfulness.”

Emmanuel Nzaramba, the MIGEPROF representative told Igihe.com, “Our culture like any other in the world is dynamic. For sure there are issues in our cultures that can promote GBV, but interestingly in the same culture, there are other issues (positive values) that can contribute to addressing GBV.”

Whether or not there is a direct connection between cultural ideals and perpetuation of GBV can never be linked for causation.

However, one result is clear. As much as the GBV education must involve the education of perpetrators, nothing can be accomplished without active participation of possible victims.

A MIGEPROF analysis of the deeply rooted social characteristics of conjugal relations in Rwanda only confirms the above.

68% of Rwandan women agree with the fact that an exemplary wife owes unconditional obedience to her husband and 64% agree that a woman must consent to sexual relationships with her husband even if she’s not in the mood.

Finally a whopping 78% believe conjugal problems are not to be discussed outside of the family.

Reading these statistics it is not surprising that most abused choose to turn the other cheek. The current family and gender norms for young girls whether or not it can be seen daily clearly play into the power dominances that fuel GBV.

In fact, based on what has been revealed in the studies, it is clear that models of male authority and female submission are still being transmitted from one generation to the next with few questions asked and few changes made.

However, as concluded by the study, “The only difference between now and modern days is that modernization has revealed to a woman her rights and she has been aware of the violence that she undergoes and how to denounce it.”

This awareness is what makes this particular generation’s mandate greater than those who came before us. Studies have revealed time and again that despite national evidence of violence against women, evidence of women’s cultural apathy to these conditions also exists nationwide.

Nzaramba informed Igihe.com that the MIGEPROF plan already focuses on, developing policy and strategic plans to address gender inequality.

The plan also seeks to enact gender sensitive laws or review those that contain gender discriminatory provisions. It also involves disseminating such policies and laws enabling people to know their rights and be able to claim them.

Finally the plan focuses on conducting awareness campaigns mobilizing and involving the community, especially engaging boys and men to adopt positive masculinity.”

Therefore, it seems the Ministry has already focused greatly on paving the road for this generation’s women to face GBV. All that is left for women to actually walk on it.

In regards to the future generation Nzaramba told Igihe.com, “Ground is being prepared for them to live in a GBV free country. This includes programs in place aiming at educating and empowering girls in all areas of life.”

While the Ministry prepares for such a world, it is time for the young women of Rwanda to have the agency to enact such a world in their everyday life and attitudes. Otherwise the country may be pummeling head first into a national hypocrisy.

Now no one said it was easy because your own culture is not an easy thing to pick and choose from. But the time for our generation has come to make a choice.

Young Rwandan women nationwide whether it be in the rural villages or in the heart of Kigali city, have never been more aware of their rights as they are today.

This is the political climate and national attitude women have been waiting for to make a permanent change, and the time will never be as ripe as now.

Nzaramba is hopeful for this change, “By focusing on the positive values in our culture, with the political will and gender sensitive policies and laws, we are optimistic that gender inequality will ultimately be eliminated. Of course this will take some time, but at least we are sure of where we are going and know what it takes to get there.”

In fact, the Demographic Health Survey of 2010 conducted from January-March of this year has included two sections on GBV. First a section containing solely questions on domestic violence and second, a section of women’s autonomy and domestic violence.

The results are currently being compiled and are expected to be released in the near future. All I can do is hold my breath, open my eyes and hope unusually, that it will prove me wrong.

By Silver Bugingo

Government of Rwanda has committed to the construction of a 120-kilometer electric fence to run the boundary of the park at a cost of US$2.7 million. This aims at protecting humans resident around the park area from attacks by wild animals. A fenced Akagera park has high value investment potential and it enables restocking the park with nearly extinct lions and rhinos…

Disturbing stories of crop vandalism and human injuries caused by an invasion by a herd of about 70 elephants had recently dominated the media.Elephants invaded over hundred families of Kayonza district, Eastern province destroying more than 80 hectares of crops. Intervention of a noisy military helicopter scared the beasts away.

In quick response to the elephant attacks, the legislature has deliberated on a new law that obliges the state to compensate persons attacked by wild animals from any gazzetted national park.

However, incidences of vulnerable citizens in the Eastern province dying at the wildlife attacks are more than two decades old. Many people who are well acquainted with the Rwandan dynamics can confirm that historically hundreds of people resident in the park peripheries have been killed and/or injured by wild animals.

Other statistics indicate that of the 110 elephants, about half are outside the park roaming in the army training area and at occasions; they go into the villages, raiding crops and sometimes injuring residents.

records indicate that the attacks started as far back as late 1990s. Last year alone, sixteen people were seriously injured, mainly by buffalos and hippos while five people got killed. Property destroyed in form of agricultural fields and buildings and other propertyis valued at billions.

Talking about the implications of the uncontrolled wildlife dangers yesterday, a Gatsibo district resident who is here on a visit narrated of a lady who was gored by a buffalo just next to the park and she in hospital now; this happens, it’s a weekly occurrence, and the statistics make for quite horrific reading.

In fact, this will remind many readers of a horrible tale in a novel titled: “Through it All: The Choice is Rejoice” by Mr. Live Wesige. The author tells of how his parents miraculously survived loin’s attack while still in his mother’s womb, to an impossible birth that doctors in Belgium said would surely kill him but he was really born and survived just at the will of God.

The well-to-do couple had in 1983 driven and paid a visit to relatives in Karangazi survived an accident involving a collision with motor-taxi, husband on the driving wheel was rushed to a Clinique nearby. The helpless pregnant woman remained at the scene and was attacked by lioness that seriously injured her but didn’t kill her.

To cut a long story short, wildlife in the national park has been causing human deaths even during the late Juvenal Habyarimana’s regime. His regime had denied hundreds of refugees their inviolable right to citizenship saying “the country was densely populated” and that “the national park was as valuable to the country like a heart to a human body”, yet it wasn’t protected with the necessary electric fence.

Wandering wildlife does not only pose a threat to the property and livelihoods of people living nearby. Reliable sources will tell you that there used to be close to 300 lions in the park and they’ve all been wiped out.

In 2005,when a lion killed livestock, the owners would poison its carcasses. The lions would keep coming back to the carcasses, ingest the poison and you’d get a couple of them dying indiscriminately.

The new fence has the potential to curb disease transmission between wildlife and livestock. Absence of a fence had prevented investment,in outside hotels and other investments near the park.

Effective fencing of the park will enable reintroduction of lions and rhinos to make the site a “big five” reserve, Havemann says. A lot of tourists come to the country to see the mountain gorillas and we’d like to keep those valuable input in the country rather than going to Kenya or Tanzania to see the big five.

Enacting a compensation law to victims is not the utmost solution. Damaged property may be valued in monetary terms and compensated but human life in invaluable.

A few days to the celebration of liberation of Rwanda, all Rwandans should reject the recent malicious rankings that place Rwanda as a failed state in unison. The ideal Rwandans know what they want and have on many occasions proved to the world that all is possible with homemade solutions.

Rwanda cannot run away from criticisms by a number of organizations mostly in the west that have taken it upon themselves to audit, police and give expert opinions and directions about domestic matters in developing countries.

The first success made by Rwandans was when on their own managed to stop the 1994 genocide. The country had been ignored by the wealthier and stable west that cared less about deaths in Rwanda but kept arguing on the right word for describing the killings, ‘genocide or massacres’.

The western powers will live to be haunted by this inability to own Rwanda success. Rwanda success accumulated since 1994 makes it harder for the western countries formerly involved with genocide regime of Habyarimana to apologize.

Having moved from a desperate nation, Rwanda has attained a commendable position on the continent by asserting herself as a role model state as opposed to sadist inspired rankings as a failed state.

According to the failed state Index, a state is rendered a failed entity when its government has lost its territory or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of force has earned the label. However, there can be more subtle attributes of failure.

Sincerely, the Rwanda everybody knows has not lost an inch of its territory. The National defense forces have not lost any centimetre of Rwanda territory to a foreign enemy of any sort. Instead, Rwandan forces are heavily involved in peacekeeping mission in Sudan and Haiti. It is thus illogical to drag Rwanda into a nation without control of its territorial integrity.

Another category for measuring a state failure, the populace may rely entirely on the black market, fail to pay taxes, or engage in large-scale civil disobedience. Definitely any sane person who has been to Rwanda clearly knows that there are substantial consumable products manufactured locally and a proportionate supply from neighbouring countries through 24hr active Rwanda borders.

Rwanda’s economic performance has been impressive since 2004, with an average annual growth rate of 8%. The country has also registered strong performance in trade, tourism, and in foreign direct investment (FDI), with more than US$1 billion allocated since 2001. All this data is interesting proof that Rwanda is not a failing entity.

Middle level industries and markets are been constructed throughout the country to strengthen the infrastructure base that allows for economic development. Agro processing, construction materials manufacturing factories, rural electrification, safe water, and livestock restocking in every home and free elementary education could not be indicators of a failing state but signs of a stabilized country.

In addition, Rwanda has not been subjected to involuntary restrictions of its sovereignty, such as political or economic sanctions, the presence of foreign military forces on its soil, or other military constraints, such as a no-fly zone to be booked a place on list of failed states.

Similarly, outside intervention as symptom of and a trigger for state collapse does not apply in the current Rwanda situation. The country is not in a dire situation to require outside intervention instead Rwanda is currently exporting specialized peacekeeping labour to other countries in need.

Is the FSI discrediting the Rwanda that the World Economic Forum’s recently released Global Competitiveness Report ranking Rwanda as the 6th most competitive market in sub-Saharan Africa, and among the world’s best on indicators such as female participation in the labour force, staff training, and legal rights.

Recent Fitch Ratings upgraded Rwanda to a “B,” citing Rwanda’s “uninterrupted” period of economic growth and significant improvement of its business environment. This year, Rwanda was the first African country to become “the world’s top reformer,” according to the World Bank.

Considering the recent history of Rwanda and the speed with which domestically generated solutions have helped the tiny landlocked country transform into the most secure country on the continent, FSI should have known that Rwanda does not fall in the kind of countries it subjects their rankings onto.

With major achievements in the health sector, good governance, education, security, tourism and easiness of doing business among others, it does not mean in totality that Rwanda is a super performer. Of course, there are many improvements needed both urgent and gradual and these are achievable with the current well-focused pro people leadership.