'You had the majority of the dead—men. The majority of the fugitives—men. The majority of the prisoners—men. Who will run the country?' Via NatGeo
This story is part of our November 2019 special issue of National Geographic magazine, “Women: A Century of Change.” Read more stories here. Rwanda’s genocide Museum is a haunting place, one of the memorials in the capital city of Kigali that commemorate a hundred days of terrifying tribal conflict in 1994.
“You had the majority of the dead—men,” she says. “The majority of the fugitives—men. The majority of the prisoners—men. Who will run the country?” The presidency remains the domain of men—since 2000 the office has been held by Paul Kagame, the former military commander whose forces ended the genocide—but women occupy 13 of the 26 seats in Rwanda’s cabinet. Viewed as an authoritarian by some, a visionary leader by others, Kagame, with his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, championed the push to form a new national identity that purged any mention of Hutu and Tutsi, and took giant leaps toward gender equality.
Justine Uvuza led the legal division of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion and was tasked with, among other things, identifying gender-discriminatory laws to be amended or repealed, such as a law that forbade women from working at night. Another law not only prohibited women from entering the diplomatic corps, but said a woman was “part of the property” of a man who became a diplomat.
Rwandan women didn’t fight for their rights in the streets; they achieved them through legislative action, expecting that reform would trickle down and permeate society. Yet neither Rubagumya, the parliamentarian, nor Uvuza, former head of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion’s legal division, believe society has changed so much that the 30 percent quota is no longer necessary to ensure a robust female parliamentary presence.
The next step in Rwanda’s gender evolution, says Mary Balikungeri, director and founder of the Rwanda Women’s Network, is focusing on men and “how we transform our own families, our own husbands.”
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