International Legal Protection for Women and Female Children: Rwanda - a Case Study

I. INTRODUCTION I deplore the fact that sexual and gender-based violence continues to be used as a weapon of war in African conflicts ... Every effort must be made to halt this odious practice, and bring the perpetrators to justice. (2) Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, 7 July 2004 Much attention has been paid to violence against women and female children during times of turmoil. (3) After conducting interviews in the conflict-ridden Darfur region of Sudan, Doctors Without Borders reported that 28 percent of women interviewed identified themselves as victims of gang rape. (4) During the unrest in Uganda, The Lord's Resistance Army rebels have consistently used sexual assault on the female civilian population as a method of intimidation and control. (5) Sexual violence also affected a large majority of Liberia's female population during the country's recent civil war. (6) In Sierra Leone, the number of victims of sexual assault attendant to the civil conflict is similarly high. (7) According to a Human Rights Watch report, almost two thousand sexual assault victims sought treatment at one Doctors Without Borders program after the January 1999 Freetown offensive. Over half of these women reported that they had been victims of gang-rape, with over 200 becoming pregnant from the sexual assault. (8) In the unstable Democratic Republic of the Congo, gender-based violence has been an ongoing problem and has been used as a weapon of war as a means of intimidation and control. (9) This study will address the endemic victimization of African women and female children and will posit a number of international legal reforms, applicable both during conflict and in times of peace, that might ameliorate such victimization. (10) Specifically, this study will focus on the Republic of Rwanda in the post-genocide era. The goal of this study is to demonstrate how other African nations can learn from the successes and failures of Rwanda, and how they can use these lessons to more effectively protect their women and female children from victimization that occurs during times of unrest. This study will begin by investigating cultural, historical, and political factors that have fostered the problems facing women and female children in Rwandan society, before discussing the problem of sexual assault during the genocide in Rwanda. This study will then explore the international legal mechanisms that Rwanda can utilize to improve the plight of women and female children during conflict, both in Rwanda and across the globe. (11) Part One of this study will introduce the problem of sexual assault during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda through an exploration of Rwanda's history prior to the atrocities. Part Two will address general international legal mechanisms that should be used by the government of Rwanda to better protect its female population. Part Three will suggest regional, legal mechanisms that may provide greater protection to women and female children during conflict. From this case study, hopefully other developing nations will use the lessons of Rwanda's tragic past and the availability of international legal tools presently at their disposal, to proactively ensure the safety of their own female populations in the future. II. RWANDA AND THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN--A BACKGROUND A. Rwanda's Women--The Key to Rwanda's Future In Rwanda, as in most African nations, women play an enormously important role in the social and economic wellbeing of the family unit and society in general. In the immediate aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the population of Rwanda was 70% female. (12) As of 2004, ten years after the genocide, women comprised approximately 54% of the Rwandan population. (13) A majority of members of the adult working population in Rwanda are women. (14) Women head 35% of households, are almost solely responsible for raising children, and produce the majority of all agricultural output. …