04. July 2006
Inspiring and Influencing Change
Atty. Justine Mbabazi on Rwandan Women Ten Years After Genocide
„Where are the women?,“ Justine challenges. A lawyer by profession, a Rwandan refugee by circumstance and a human rights fighter by choice, she inspires women to nurture their self-worth and inner power.
“We should not be naïve about the suffering of women in the world. Instead, we should realize that the destiny of women lies in our hands, and that it is a shame on our part as they continue to suffer in silence.”
Narrating events of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Justine relates, „Even today the women continue to suffer. HIV AIDS was used as a weapon of war by the militia—they went to the hospitals, picked up HIV positive patients, loaded them on to trucks and took them to schools where Tutsi women were locked up. This was to ensure that future generations of Tutsis would die long after the men were murdered. The Interehamwe militia raped women, and then the HIV positive patients raped them, One woman was raped by more than a 100 men for three days before she lost consciousness.”
The repercussions because of the violence were horrendous and continue to haunt the country today. 85% of the women who were raped became HIV positive, and many of them gave birth to HIV positive children. Today, more than a million children are orphans.
In her small memoir, “A Journey to Remember: A Woman’s Perspective”, Justine looked at how women die silently simply because they were born as females. She looked at how women suffer due to outdated cultural beliefs as they are surrounded by a culture of impunity and violence.
She sees this clearly today as she roams the streets of Kabul, trains women lawyers and defends human rights cases in Afghanistan. Justine is presently a mentor and a trainer of the first batch of female defense lawyers in Afghanistan. She also acts as legal counsel to over 500 women victims of Gender Based Violence. She encourages women to find their voice because as many women are still imprisoned in outdated beliefs and practices that steal their joy and limit their contribution to life.
All women, all mothers, all young girls resemble their own countries. Women represent what the country is and ought to be,. Once we disregard the suffering of women, we ignore the entire nation and its future generations, she concludes.
Full text of Atty. Mbabazi's speech can be also be downloaded in this website. Plese click here: en.swi-austria.org/publicationsdownloads/