Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

Rwandan society is hostile to these women and children. Some were castigated by their families and community; some hospitals wouldn’t treat them. As half-castes, the enfants de mauvais souvenir are accepted by neither Hutu nor Tutsi. “Some women were forced by their families to give up the child,” explained Espérance Mukamana, whom I met in Kigali, where she works for Avega, the widows’ organization in Rwanda. “In the beginning, it was hard for these women even to see their children as human beings because they are considered children of evil. Most of these women never find true love for their children. They love them enough to survive, but no more. You have to motivate the mothers, repeating again and again that the child is blameless. It’s hard for them to see the child as innocent; it’s impossible for them to see themselves as innocent.” All had faced financial struggles; deemed unmarriageable, most were struggling to feed themselves and their offspring.

Professor Jean Damascène Ndayambaje, head of the Department of Psychology at the National University of Rwanda in Butare, explained that it was considered a disgrace for a woman to have allowed herself to be raped rather than killed. “Can one say that one of these things is better than the other?” he asked. “Our society does not say so. All the shame goes to the woman.” He described how one woman had to be physically restrained while doctors performed a caesarean because she had clenched her vaginal muscles tightly in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the birth. When the doctors brought her the baby, she began ranting and was placed in a psychiatric hospital. “There are whole mental wards full of such women,” Ndayambaje said. Professor Jean-Pierre Gatsinzi, head of the School of Journalism and Communication at the National University, pointed out a major cultural change, in which a strong bond between mother and child was no longer presumed. “It is a new society we live in,” he said, “with different rules. One must recognize that rape and war are both traumas, and that these women experienced both traumas simultaneously. Rape in war is a crime against humanity; it’s a lot worse than ordinary rape.” While any rape can be profoundly traumatic for its immediate victim, wartime rape is an attack on social norms and more profoundly traumatizes the society in which it occurs.

Mukamana explained, “Traumatized mothers are harsh and cold to their children, even abusive. The children know that their mothers don’t love them, but they don’t know why. They speak and their mothers don’t listen to them; they cry and their mothers don’t comfort them. So they develop strange behaviors. They themselves are cold and restless. Because they receive so little love at home, they go out on the street and follow strangers.” Many of these children have been given darkly evocative names: one child was named Inkuba, or War. Another was Little Killer after his father; another, Child of Hate. Alphonsine Nyirahabimana, who also works with this population at Avega, said, “I have always wondered how any of these mothers can love their children. For some, Christianity has played a big role, and they succeed by praying. Others see the bright part of their situation; one said, for example, ‘I was raped and my family was murdered and I have this child who came out of horror, but at least I don’t have HIV.’ But most are without family, desperate, and hopeless. They come to Avega and talk to one another. No one can forget what happened to them, so they might as well remember together.”

Some women form associations and stand up for their rights. Some have gained enough strength from this group identity to compensate for their loss of traditional social position. Professor Célestin Kalimba, head of the history department at the National University, said that a new Rwandan feminism has been among the accidental side effects of the genocide. “So much of the male population is either dead or in jail,” he said, “and women have to step into major roles. Post-genocide, women can inherit property, which was not possible before. Before, men had multiple wives. Now they sign a contract in the church when they marry, swearing that they will be monogamous. The situation for women is better now than it has ever been in Rwanda.” Some mothers who endured forced pregnancy have struggled toward a new society—if not for themselves, then for their castigated children.