‘Through a Gender Lens’: How a Gendered Analysis of Genocide and Mass Categorical Violence Can Prevent Further Injustice in Recovering Societies

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Claudia Smith

January 2018

M.A. Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Supervisor: Dr. Karel Berkhoff.

Second Reader: Dr. Eveline Buchheim,

NIOD Institute of War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

MASTER’S THESIS SUBMISSION

‘Through a Gender Lens’: How a Gendered Analysis

of Genocide and Mass Categorical Violence Can

Prevent Further Injustice in Recovering Societies

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Locating gendered violence can trigger early warning systems and therefore signal a swift response, with the main goal of prevention. Furthermore, exploring the theme of gender within genocide and mass categorical violence can help survivors in their process of recovery. Gender analyses has a victim focus and aims to expose and expel injustices from all realms of society.

Methodology

In each chapter, I explore different realms within the study of genocide that ultimately present the importance and significance of integrating gender into the field. Firstly, I assess the progress of historiography in the topics of gender and genocide. In doing so, this will highlight how both fields have progressively attributed to exposing injustice and

consequently incited efforts for change. By exposing previously neglected topics, I will assess how scholars continue to promote the topic of gender within the study of genocide and the impact this has today.

Secondly, by addressing common gender perceptions, this thesis uncovers damaged society’s deep-rooted issues that need addressing so as to prevent further injustices. This will expose the injustice victims face when returning to post-genocide settings, which can later be tackled.

Alongside victims, I will view the perpetrators and how perceptions of gender roles have affected them. This will ultimately expose how gender constructs can affect the system of justice and the outcome of trials

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Using Rwanda as a model, I address how the exposure of cultured and gendered stigmas can remove them, in assisting and allowing victims to speak out about their trauma.

Then, by viewing how ‘gender’ has revolutionised genocide at the legal level, we see how this has created a significant impact in helping victim recovery. Digging deep into gender imbalance, this can help design mechanisms to tackle the root cause of injustice.

As I will present with a case study in the Mayaga region in Rwanda, the creation of cooperatives can enforce female empowerment by tackling women’s economic disadvantage. This ultimately shows us how a gendered analysis in various areas of genocide studies can eradicate gender injustice.

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Introduction

The integration of the study of genocide along with the topic of gender has held significant prominence in scholarly rhetoric. Some have widely contested its prominent place in genocide studies, while others have progressed to expose its further significance. Incorporating gender into the topic of genocide can expose crucial elements to prevent further injustice, or even disclose an early warning. What I aim to address, is how a gendered analysis of genocide or mass categorical violence will expose injustices and thus enable efforts to prevent such instances in the future.

When writing about genocide it is important to classify the use of terminology. Because of the wide range and difficultly of definitions, overtime there has been significant confusion. Genocide is legally defined as; any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.1_{Because the legal terminology} does not cover all instances of group selective violence, for the purpose of this essay I will also use Scott Straus’ terminology of ‘mass categorical violence’ in speaking about large-scale repressive violence against population groups.2

Gender has also proven to be a complicated concept. The greatest confusion is that it is often used simultaneously and interchangeably with the term sex, which refers to biological determinants.3_{Gender is about the socialization of expectations of men and women in} regard to different sexual and racial markings. Societies and cultures attach social meanings to these markings and set expectations in; attitudes, norms, values, behaviours and

personality traits that women and men are expected to "perform", the main concepts being

1 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II, December 9 1948.

2 Scott Straus, ‘Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa’ (Cornell University Press, 2015).

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masculinity and femininity.4_{Robert Connell has described gender as “a social process} whereby divisions of labour, power, and emotional, as well as modes of dress and identity, are differentiated (and the differences naturalised), among as well as between men and women.”5

The base of this study is focused on gender concepts in Rwanda, alongside perceptions in the former Yugoslavia and northern Uganda.

4 Lisa Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research, 1:3, 1999, p. 390.

5 Robert Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987).

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Chapter One

Historiography and Progress

Incorporating gender as a theme within the study of genocide has been crucial in bringing forward changes and improvements for the goals of future prevention. Over the past twenty years, genocide scholarship has been open to a vast number of theoretical inputs from historians and academics who specialise in the study of gender. Gender studies has raised important issues, including the cultural and biological reproduction of various groups of people; construction of their identities; as well as perpetrator ideologies and intent. Therefore, any study of genocide, implicitly or explicitly, does address gender.6_{The impact of its recognition as a vital aspect within the field of genocide continues}

to highlight drastic measures which need to be addressed, especially when it comes to dealing with the aftermath and the process of recovery of victims of genocide and mass categorical violence. This chapter will focus on the historiography and progress of integrating gender as a theme within the field of genocide studies. Firstly, I explore the work of the early writers on gender within the study of genocide and the impact of their scholarship. Then, I will address the progress of gender studies within genocide scholarship in exposing sexual violence against women and in highlighting gendered strategies within that violence. Lastly, I explore the efforts of scholarship to incorporate the male experience.

The Trailblazers

Integrating the study of gender and genocide started with the study of women in the 1980s. Due to the realisation that women’s stories in particular had been greatly excluded from historical

scholarship, this enabled a concentration of women’s history within the study of genocide; initially, the Holocaust in particular.7_{Consequently, treating women as gendered subjects of history has since}

then amplified the level of attention paid to men as gendered subjects as well; an area of study we are beginning to see a lot more of.8_{Looking at the Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders during and}

after genocidal events, scholars have become more aware of the importance in locating how the construct of gender has affected individuals differently.

Jewish-American Political Scientist and Historian Raul Hilberg, renowned for his publications on the Holocaust, has been an important figure in bringing the theme of gender into the realm of Holocaust studies, especially with the suffering of victims on a gendered basis. His widely attributed book ‘The

6 Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, ‘Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention’ in Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol.7:1 (University of Toronto Press, 2012) p. 91.

7 Ibid; p. 89.

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Destruction of the European Jews’ was one of the very first publications focusing on the perpetrators

of the Holocaust. This had attracted a wide audience, not for his work alone, but also brought attention to the focus of the victim of the crime also, of which many books came flowing after.9

Hilberg has been credited for his contribution to opening doors to sectors previously untouched. Thus, with regard to the role of gender, in his publication of ‘Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The

Jewish Catastrophe, 1933–1945’, Hilberg makes clear that the road to annihilation was marked by

events that specifically affected men as men, and women as women.10

The term ‘gendercide’; gender-selective mass killing, was introduced by the American philosopher Mary Ann Warren with her 1985 book ‘Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection’.11_Although

initially her focus examined instances in which women and girls were targets of genocide, the term has since evolved to also incorporate the genocidal targeting of men. The book is one of the most important extensions of a gendered approach to genocide. However, many scholars have critiqued the works of Warren in that her original ‘Gendercide’ literature holds some limitations and

inconsistencies: confusing ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ as well as making a misguided analogy with the legal term of ‘genocide’.12_{Other scholars since have created an array of more accurate and fitting}

terminology; with the influence of Warren’s work.

One example of this was the historian Elisa von Joeden Forgey, who has defended the importance of ‐ incorporating the study of both Gender and Genocide in her various works, noting that consideration of gender is crucial to the understanding genocide “because genocide is an historical process that is, at its core, about group reproduction.”13_{What von Joeden-Forgey contends here is that specific}

gendered crimes are used against men and women in different ways as a genocidal mechanism. Sexual Violence Against Women

Von Joeden-Forgey explains how female victims of sexual violence in genocidal settings are targeted by perpetrators with specific gendered intentions of group destruction. On the surface, rape or sexual violence may be seen as a random act, committed at a time of upheaval and lawlessness. However, when looking at the bigger picture, it has an even more sinister meaning. One example of perpetrator intent of gendered violence has been recognised in the Bosnian genocide. Female victims were deliberately impregnated as a means to be “defiled by the seed of the predating

9 Raul Hilberg, ‘The Destruction of the European Jews’ (Yale University Press, 1961).

10 Raul Hilberg, ‘Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933–1945’ (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993) p. 126.

11 Mary Anne Warren, ‘Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection’, (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985).

12 Charlie Carpenter, ‘Beyond 'Gendercide': Incorporating Gender into Comparative Genocide Studies’ (The International Journal of Human Rights, 2002) p. 77.

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enemy”, a tactic of ethnic cleansing by forcing the reproduction of perpetrator’s offspring.14_{Due to}

the vastness of genocidal situations in differing cultures, gendered tactics there have various meanings and intentions.

Gender and Genocide scholar Geetanjali Gangoli of the Violence Against Women Research Group in Bristol has argued that sexual violence toward women in genocide is not random but an act

committed to dishonour the woman, and by extension, her community, race or country. 15_Such

dishonouring “works only when the meaning of honour as symbolically vested primarily, though not exclusively, in women's bodies is shared by both the communities of the perpetrators and the victims” and within this prism, both sides “have a shared understanding of sexual purity and impurity being vested in the bodies of women.”16_{This shows that we cannot classify one singular meaning and}

purpose behind the act of rape committed during genocide or mass categorical violence, but we must take into consideration the cultures and values within the specific countries and communities affected.

Political scientist Adam Jones has contended that with the increase of feminist scholarship, grappling with the notion of rape as a tool of ‘ethnic cleansing’, the use of the term “genocidal rape” has achieved considerable currency in the field.17_{Although not all instances of rape intend or lead to}

death of the victim, the act “aims to undermine the security and cohesion of the targeted

community (in part by shattering the self-confidence of community males who are unable to protect “their” women from the atrocities)”. This in turn “terrorizes entire communities into leaving their homes; and the bonds among community members may be further undermined when women bear the ethnically-mixed offspring of rape at the hands of men from other ethnic communities.”18

Similarly, in terms of the Armenian genocide, Donald Bloxham has identified that forced marriage and sexual slavery was ‘colonization of the female body’.19_{Again, here we see another example of}

how the intention of the act can differ in each situation of different communities as well as on an

14 Geetanjali Gangoli, ‘Engendering Genocide: Gender, Conflict and Violence’ in Women's Studies International Forum, Vol.29 (Elsevier, 2006).

15 Ibid; p. 535.

16 Ibid;.

17 Adam Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda’ in Journal of Genocide Research, 4:1, (Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2002) pp. 81-82.

18 Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide’ pp. 81-82.

19 Donald Bloxham, ‘Internal Colonization, Inter‐Imperial Conflict and the Armenian Genocide’, in A. Dirk Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), p. 338.

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individual basis. Understanding this allows us to expose gendered forms of violence that may be visible in conflict settings with a genocidal agenda.

The more recent genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur have pushed the international community to think differently about rape. Mass rape was evidently used as a systematic tool in each of these cases of genocide, yet not for identical reasons and to varying degrees .

Von Joeden-Forgey reminds us that the purpose of discussing crimes such as sexual violence within the study of genocide, is to not rank types in regards of the degree of severity, “but to rather understand the words and actions of different groups of perpetrators so that we can begin to interpret the multiple functions of sexual violence during genocidal processes”.20

Gendered Strategies of Destruction

Like in other forms of violence within genocide, intents are varied per case even though the ultimate aim of genocidal organisations is the material destruction of the target group. Employing a gendered analysis exposes various different layers which contribute to the perpetration of the crime. Von Joeden forgey explains that these layers uncovered by gendered concepts include gendered ‐ strategies pursued in the course of group destruction (how perpetrators understand power; how they define their own group and the targeted victim group); the gendered nature of international representations of and responses; the use of gender in propaganda and in denial strategies; gender dynamics in the economic, political, social, and familial spheres within perpetrator and victim societies; the influence of gender on conceptions and experiences of conflict among perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and witnesses; as well as the gendered inflection of justice systems. 21

This list shows how extensive the realm of gender studies can be when incorporated in to the study of genocide and mass categorical violence. As Von Joeden-forgey puts it, gender “follows the crime from its long-term origins to short-term facilitators, to immediate indicators, to intervention, to justice, and to reconstruction after the fact”.22_{By examining the network of gendered relationships}

that go into creating groups, we are ultimately able to collect ideas about genocidal intent.

Frequently, as a result of genocidal events, many female victims have been marginalized from their communities in raising children born of war or caring for children orphaned in conflict.In

post-20 Von Joeden-Forgey, ‘Engendering Genocide: Gender, Conflict and Violence’ p. 92.

21 Ibid; p. 91.

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genocide societies, women, compared to their male counterparts, are disadvantaged financially; with less access to jobs, land, resources and basic services.23

Returning to von Joeden forgey’s explanation that men and women are targeted differently in ‐ genocide or mass categorical violence “according to both their perceived and actual positions within the reproductive process”; she presents the argument that a gendered analysis allows us to see that genocide, in its most basic form, is “a crime against the generative power of a group and the

institutions that support it.” 24_{She contends that the family unit is at the centre of genocidal intent}

when we see forms of gendered violence because families are the basic unit of the reproduction of groups. Ultimately, according to the roles that the victims are perceived to play within their group's biological and social reproduction, the family and the roles that adhere to it “are prime theatres for the enactment of genocidal intent.”25_{Therefore, viewing victims’ role as family members can}

highlight perpetrator intent and may therefore enable identification of early warning or classification of genocide.

Incorporating the Male Experience

Male victimisation in genocide and mass categorical violence is a new focus. With gender research gaining more momentum in mainstream scholarship, feminist inquiry has occasionally been accused of ignoring the suffering of men and boys. Criticisms made about feminist approaches began to create a competitive framework on gender analysis in the topic where the respective fates of male and female victims were soon weighed in accordance to their perceived severity.26_{Primarily, the}

preoccupation with the female experience was criticized for “leaving men within the original framework of universal subject hood” and thereby “unintentionally reaffirming the assumption of the gender neutrality of men's lives.”‐ 27

This preoccupation can be explained by the fact that gender studies was created by feminist scholars, whose main interest was to include women into historical narratives.28

Genocidal Masculinity

23 Ibid; p. 94.

24 Elisa Von Joeden‐forgey, ‘Gender and Genocide’ in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies Edited by Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 61.

25 Ibid; p. 78.

26 Von Joeden-Forgey, ‘Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention’ p. 89-90.

27 Von Joeden‐forgey, ‘Gender and Genocide’ p. 67.

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In genocide or mass categorical violence, male victims are usually targeted because of perpetrators’ conscious beliefs regarding ascribed characteristics of men.29_{Men have always been the first targets}

and perceived threat to the perpetrator group. This was evident in the case of Rwanda where even the youngest of boys were killed as a means to prevent them growing up to be RPF soldiers, while their sisters “were spared as chattel for the Hutu Militias”.30_{Genocide and Human Rights scholar}

Charlie Carpenter states that these gendered structures “can create sex-specific outcomes regardless of conscious thought on the part of actors”; and that “gender ideology operates consciously in the decision-making process of those actors themselves”.31_{Expanding on this, Carpenter explains how}

gender discourses contain prescriptive or proscriptive gender norms such as; ‘save the women and children’ or ‘women and children first’ which ultimately governs action in specific cases, forcing individuals to make policy choices.32

Drawing on Mary Ann Warren’s work on sex-selective mass killings of women, Adam Jones has addressed the sex-selective mass-killing of men and the issue of gender stereotypes. According to Jones, the policy of killing men first is part of a “tripwire or harbinger of fuller scale root and branch ‐ ‐ ‐ genocides” and can be a useful insight for early warning systems.33_{Von Joeden-forgey also}

emphasises that civilian men are the first targets of genocide, and encourages attempts to fashion an early warning system as a means of ending the impunity of those responsible.34_{She explains how}

targeting men first may be viewed as ‘decapitating’ the family basis of the social structure; similar to targeting intellectuals as a means to destroy the institutional basis of the public life of a group. 35

Ultimately, the killing of ‘battle aged’ men can be used to create and expose vulnerability in the rest ‐ of the population.Here, ‘genocidal masculinity’ is specialised by a concept of power that relies on removing groups or structures that perpetrators believe constitute threats and restrict the full expression of their own masculine identity.36

‘Battle Age’

Male victims have generally been excluded from the efforts of international humanitarian attention. One common reason is the patriarchal notion of the term ‘civilian’, which regularly means ‘women

29 Charlie Carpenter, ‘Beyond 'Gendercide', p. 84

30 Charlie Carpenter, ‘Beyond 'Gendercide', p. 84.

31 Ibid;.

32 Ibid; p. 81.

33 Jones, ‘Gendercide and Genocide’, p. 23.

34 Von Joeden‐forgey, ‘Gender and Genocide’, p. 67.

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and children’.37_{With regard to women, patriarchal norms have stereotyped them as more peaceful}

by nature. These observations by scholars of perpetrator studies are having a measurable impact on the study of violence and gender.

These ascribed beliefs that only men are violent and only women are peaceful have meant that attacks on men receive less outrage in comparison to such attacks on women and children. Nevertheless, public outrage at atrocities against women and children is vastly significant as the backlash of horror, particularly in terms of international media attention, does shed light on further genocidal crimes to be investigated by the international community.38

By viewing genocide through a gendered lens, we are able to uncover aspects of the crime that used to remain hidden and we can bring together phenomena in a way that restores the internal logic of the crime.39_{Sexual violence is now no longer regarded as simply a consequence of genocidal events,}

but rather a vital mechanism in ethnic cleansing and mass destruction of a group. Exposing such gendered strategies of violence exposes different motivations of perpetrators and shows that recognising sex differentiation among victims is extremely important to the process. Ultimately, gender research helps engage our understanding of genocide as a historical process. Incorporating and understanding forms of gendered violence can help our understanding of the crime, locate intent and assist in defining categorical mass violence as genocide on legal terms.

Although many areas concerning gender based issues within genocide studies have been covered by scholars and academics in the field, many aspects remain to be explored. Von Joeden-Forgey, for instance, has opened the debate for if there is a specific kind of violent masculinity, symbolic or actualized in the physical world, that makes societies more receptive to genocidal ideas?40

In the next following chapters, I present the importance of exploring gender constructs in the topic of genocide. By depicting Rwanda in the early 1990s, with reference to other genocidal events, it becomes clear that the widespread and systematic use of gendered patterns of attack have been explicit parts of the perpetrators' genocidal strategies.41

39 Ibid; p. 78.

40 Von Joeden-Forgey, ‘Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention’, p. 93.

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Chapter Two

Feminine Gender Perceptions

Common perceptions of gender are an extremely important facet in how men and women are viewed and treated during and after genocides and mass categorical violence. Using the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as the main case study, alongside a discussion of the Bosnian genocide, we are able to see how stereotyped perceptions held by perpetrators toward victims in terms of gender roles has determined the reaction of society after the crime. Female Perpetrators

The involvement of women in the perpetration of violence has always been a striking subject of interest. It has been argued that many feminist debates on violence against women have led to a focus of them as singularly victims of male violence.42_{However, during times of} conflict and war, there can occur great shifts in the role that women perform. In most such cases, women are called upon to demonstrate their loyalty to a regime by encouraging men to perpetuate violence against the ‘enemy’, or by becoming directly involved in the

violence.43_{It is not striking news that women can and have participated in mass violence,} and this does not at all exclude their involvement in genocide.

From studying the Holocaust, our attention was brought to figures such as Irma Grese or Isla Koch, the notorious female concentration camp guards, alongside many other women such as the nurses of the T4 program. Such women were directly or indirectly involved in the mass killing of Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and many other targeted victim groups44_.

42 Caroline Joan Picart, ‘Rhetorically Reconfiguring Victimhood and Agency: The Violence Against Women Act's Civil Rights Clause 6:1 (Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 2003), pp. 97−125.

43 Gangoli, ‘Engendering Genocide: Gender, Conflict and Violence’ p. 537.

44 My undergraduate dissertation goes into detail about female perpetrators of the Holocaust and the perception of their involvement; Claudia Smith, ‘How Have Gendered Perspectives Influenced

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Branded as ‘monsters’ and ‘savages’, the reaction of the public in regard to these women’s involvement, initially developed into the consensus that such women were not real women at all. Regularly, even today, we can see headlines labelling women involved in these crimes as ‘bitches’, ‘vultures’ or ‘sexual deviants’; language that seemingly gives credence to the ‘evil woman theory’. 45

In the mid 1980’s, feminist criminologists composed the theory of where these “women are deemed to have acted so far beyond society’s norms, they are no longer deserving of the chivalry of men and are either de-gendered and treated as ‘non-women’.”46_{This is based on} social beliefs that ‘real women’ do not commit crimes. Thus such women perpetrators are dehumanized and treated as ‘monsters’; regarded as even worse than their male

counterparts. Real women, supposedly, are not capable of committing such crimes; and this can result in misguided efforts of justice, recovery and prevention.

Overlooking the fact that women in general, not just freaks, can be genocidaires can have serious consequences, as many scholars have noted. It still holds relevant today that we stress the equal capability of men and women in their participation in genocide. Although now it is widely accepted by scholars that women, just like men, commit and participate in genocidal activities; the belief that women are only nurturing, caring and motherly was alive and well in Rwanda 50 years after the Holocaust.

Perceptions in Rwanda

Vincent Karangura, a Rwandan lawyer, explains how in Rwanda, “there is a presumption that women are good by nature, that is, hospitable, welcoming, mild, and incapable of

committing atrocities”, so when women really participated in the perpetration of the genocide, “that is, those who were violent or surpassed the expectations of them, and who cannot be explained away as innocent, are not understood. They are treated, not like men, not like women, but something else, like monsters.”47

Representations of Female Perpetrators of the Holocaust?’, (London: Royal Holloway University, 2016).

45 Tony Rennell, “Bitches of Buchenwald: Which death camp guard is the evil inspiration behind Kate Winslet's role in The Reader?” (Daily Mail Online, 2009).

46Laura Sjoberg & Caron E Gentry, ‘Mothers, Monsters, Whores’ (UK: Zed Books, 2008); see also Cesare Lombroso and Guglielmo Ferrero, ‘The Female Offender’ (1895), p. 151, cited in Nicole Hogg, ‘Women's Participation in the Rwandan Genocide: Mothers or Monsters?’ International Review of the Red Cross 92, no. 877, (2010).

47 Interview with Vincent Karangura, lawyer, Kigali, 13 July 2001, conducted by Nicole Hogg, ‘Women's Participation in the Rwandan Genocide: Mothers or Monsters?’.

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In Rwanda, it is difficult to accept in that women are murderers. A woman convicted of genocide told an interviewer in the Gitarama prison: “In our tradition, women are supposed to be humble people, to welcome visitors at home and show a good image. So, women would be ashamed to be found guilty. It is like a taboo, to think that women killed. Some people say it is not good to have women in prison and that is why some women are still outside prison.”48_{This is just one example of how still prevalent these collective views of} women are across the world.

Women in Higher Positions

In Rwandan politics, women have been under-represented. In 1992, two years before the genocide, 3 female government ministers were appointed, and only 12 out of a total of 70 members of parliament were women.49_{Those, attaining leadership positions and mostly} with a university education; already defied gender stereotypes in Rwandan society.50

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the former Minister of Family Affairs and Women’s Development in Rwanda, was vigorously involved in the organisation of murder and rape of Tutsis during the genocide. She “regularly visited places where refugees had been congregated and personally supervised the selection of hundreds of Tutsi men for the slaughterhouse.”51_{Meanwhile, the} few other women in a higher position in Rwandan politics, all are claimed to have conducted some kind of benevolent acts during the genocide. As respected women, mothers and daughters; many people found it impossible to reconcile such positive attributes with these women’s detestable behaviour during the genocide. The preferred option has been to remove the ‘exceptional’ women from the category of ‘women’ altogether, rather than accepting that members of the female sex could commit such acts. In ‘betraying’ their sex, seemingly these women apparently no longer merit the term. An example of this was displayed by one Rwandan feminist, who expressed the view that Nyiramasuhuko was “not a woman”; “she always acted like a man.”52

48 Woman convicted of genocide, Gitarama prison (interview, respondent #10), 17 July 2001, conducted by Hogg (2010).

49 ‘Rapport National du Rwanda aux Nations Unies pour la Quatrie`me Confe´rence Mondiale sur les Femmes, September 1995, Beijing (Chine)’, (Kigali, 1995) p. 14, cited in Hogg (2010).

50 Hogg, p. 99.

51 African Rights, ‘Rwanda–Not So Innocent: Women as Killers’ (London: African Rights, 1995), p. 2.

52 Interview with Judithe Kanakuze, National Co-ordinator, Re´seau des Femmes, Kigali, 8 June 2001, conducted by Hogg (2010).

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This process of ‘de-womanisation’ has been promoted in the Rwandan media as well as in the trials of women involved. When Nyrimakasuku was tried and convicted for her heinous involvement in the genocide, she was regularly described as a horrible mutation of the female sex.

Nicole Hogg, a former legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross, has addressed this issue in regard to women’s treatment in the force of the law. Often being regarded as ‘evil’ or ‘non-women’, if certain female suspects have challenged gender and cultural stereotypes by playing a more direct role in the violence, many people have argued that because these suspects were women, they deserve a lesser sentence than their male counterparts; or, in some other cases, a harsher sentence because of the sensationalism attracted by the case. 53

Moreover, Nyrimakasuku, amongst many other female perpetrators who find themselves at court, have frequently attempted to use to their advantage of the popular perception that as women, they are the more ‘gentler’ sex.

As the Human Rights organisation African Rights has concluded, officials in a number of African and European countries, initially unaware of the involvement of women in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, “unquestioningly granted refuge to Rwandan Hutu women who

purported to be victims of the violence when in fact they fled Rwanda to avoid charges of genocide.” 54_{Gender scholar Lisa Sharlach contends that “it is fashionable for development} programs in post-conflict societies to emphasize the importance of women as facilitators of ethnic reconciliation. The assumption is that women are better suited for this role because they are less warlike than men.” 55_{Both examples show how gender stereotypes interplay} between various aspects within the study of genocide.

Hogg’s research involved extensive interviews with Rwandans, including 71 detained female genocide suspects.56_{During one interview, Hogg came across an alternative explanation for} powerful women’s behaviour during the genocide. Venuste Bigirama, part of a Rwandan Women’s NGO expressed the view that: “women who held positions of power, who were in

53 Hogg, pp. 70-71.

54 African Rights. ‘Rwanda–Not So Innocent: Women As Killers’.

55 Lisa Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’ (Journal of Genocide Research 1:3, 1999) pp. 397-398.

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the minority, were dominated and influenced by men. If there had been more women in power, the atmosphere would have been different, and these women could have prevented the others from participating in the genocide.”57

Hogg explains how this point of view can lead to some rather uncomfortable conclusions: “There is a suggestion that women in leadership roles strayed from their ‘true nature’ under the influence of men, which limits women’s identities to the essentialist ideal.”58_{Not only} does it give little credit to these women’s qualities, such as intelligence, skill or

perseverance, which presumably helped them earn their positions in the first place; but Hogg contends this “implies that women in leadership positions are incapable of

autonomous action or thought.”59_{She reminds us of Canadian author and journalist Patricia} Pearson’s warning against this awkward paradox in that: “We cannot insist on the strength and competence of women in all the traditional masculine arenas yet continue to exonerate ourselves from the consequences of power by arguing that, where the course of it runs more darkly, we are actually powerless.”60

‘Ordinary Women’

Aside from those in higher political positions, many ‘ordinary’ women similarly assisted the attempted annihilation of the Tutsi. The general consensus has been to call these women’s participation in the genocide ‘indirect’. It involved activity such as revealing hiding places of victims; looting of Tutsi property and supporting husbands and male relatives in committing murder. Collectively, these groups of women encouraged the men into action “that would result in the death of thousands of innocent men, women and children, many of them their own neighbours.”61_{Moreover, women played a dominant role post-massacre, often in} looting and stripping bodies. This involved climbing over piled up bodies, some still alive.62 In Rwandan society, very little moral responsibility has been attached to these women’s genocidal involvement, who themselves, by and large, mostly did not view themselves as

57 Interview with Venuste Bigirama, Technical Advisor, ASOFERWA, Kigali, conducted 11 June 2001 by Hogg (2010).

* Association de Solidarité des Femmes Rwandaises.

58 Hogg, p. 101.

59 Ibid;

60 Patricia Pearson, ‘When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence’ (New York: Viking, 1997) p. 32.

61 African Rights, Rwanda–Not So Innocent: Women As Killers, p. 72.

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criminals.63_{In regard to the ‘social definition’ of the crime, the belief held by many of the} female detainees is that they did not hold responsibility for any of the killings. In an

interview conducted by Hogg in 2001, one detainee of Gitarama prison stated that “Women have this feeling that they did not kill because they only called out.”64

‘Chivalry’ Theory

Many scholars have argued that in the pursuit of justice following genocide, many women have benefited from the ‘chivalry’ of men. The chivalry theory traces back to criminologist Otto Pollak, who contended that women commit just as many crimes as men, but that women’s crimes are of a more covert nature. He claimed specifically that “the lack of social equality between the sexes has led to a cultural distribution of roles which forces women in many cases into the part of instigator rather than … performer of an overt act.”65

In adhering to female stereotypes of innocence and purity, some women on trial or in question, according to the ‘chivalry theory’, have been excused from such crimes by men “who perhaps unwittingly, exercise their discretion in women’s favour at each level of the criminal justice system – during reports, arrests, prosecution and sentencing”66_{. This same} view was expressed well by Gerald Gahima, a former Rwandan attorney, who stated in an interview that “I think that, compared to men, women are innocent. Women were mainly led by men.” 67

Patricia Pearson has concluded that ‘the criminality of women is largely masked criminality.’68_{In her book ‘When She Was Bad’, she explains that men as witnesses,}

investigators, prosecutors and judges “are so infected by gender stereotypes that they either cannot perceive of women as criminals or feel protective towards them in spite of their suspected or proven criminality”.69_{Moreover, one Rwandan lawyer had expressed: “I do not} believe the level of acquittals for women really represents their lack of participation in the

63 See Francis Heidensohn, ‘Women and Crime’ (New York University Press, 1995), p. 19. Cited by Hogg (2010) p. 82.

64 Woman convicted of genocide, Gitarama prison (interview, respondent #10), 2 July 2001, conducted by Hogg (2010).

65 Otto Pollak in Patricia Pearson pp. 20–21.

66 Otto Pollak (1950), cited by Patricia Pearson, pp. 20–21.

67 Interview with Gerald Gahima, former Rwandan Attorney General, Kigali, 3 August 2001, cited by Hogg (2010).

68 Pearson, p. 20.

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genocide. That is, I do not believe they are all innocent. I think the high acquittal rate of women is due to the indulgence of the judges, who look for reasons to acquit them. They usually say there was not enough evidence … It is psychological.”70

Implications for Feminist Theory

Many scholars have contended the view that Feminist theorizing uses gender “as the lens to point out gender inequalities, and then pays attention to the effects of these gendered power relations as they manifest between men and women during and after conflict”.71_The case of Rwanda disrupts the common assumption of many Western feminists and anti-feminists alike that women as such are extremely unlikely to engage in political violence.72 Throughout the 1980s, the western feminist discourse focusing on women and violence was divided into two groups; the ‘essentialists’ and the ‘constructivists’. The essentialist group, believe that women really are the gentler sex and consider men as inherently more warlike and violent. The constructivist group, on the other hand, propose that women generally are gentler because of nurture rather than nature. They explain sexual difference as the result of socialization and do not believe that women are inherently more pacific than are men.73 Constructivists argue that the essentialist’s structure in beliefs ‘hurt feminist movements by reinforcing the sexist stereotype of woman as the weaker vessel.’74

Pre-genocide Gender Relations

To understand the structure of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it is important to appreciate the gender relations in society before the atrocities took place; in particular the roles within the family and in political life.75_{Rwandan men were mostly responsible for ‘protecting their} families and defending their communities’ amongst other things, while most women in 1994 ‘adhered to the traditional expectations of homemaking, childrearing, and creating

community between households.’76_{These expectations in the family at home can be}

70 Interview with Vincent Karangura, lawyer, Kigali, 13 July 2001. Conducted by Hogg (2010).

71 Hogg, p. 99.

72 Ibid;

73 Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, ‘Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances’ (London: Routledge, 2000).

74 Lisa Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’ p. 389.

75 Hogg, p. 71.

76 Reva Adler, Cyanne Loyle and Judith Globerman, ‘A Calamity in the Neighborhood: Women’s Participation in the Rwandan Genocide’, in Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2:3, (2007) p. 216.

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reflected in the expectations of men and women’s experiences during the genocide. Hogg explains that although gender relations in pre-genocide Rwanda “were undoubtedly more complex than often depicted”, having given the impact of gender on social behaviour prior to the genocide, “it is not surprising it also influenced subsequent events.”77_{In 1999, the} Ministry of Gender and Promotion of the Family explained how that “From a young age, the [Rwandan] girl… experiences different forms of violence that she does not discuss…

According to tradition, physical violence is perceived as a punishment. In most cases, women accept it as such… The inferior status of the woman [and] her ignorance encourage her into submission and expose her to rape and sexual services… Women also suffer from

psychological violence… The woman is obsessed by the behaviour that is expected of her. She suffers from a total dependence on her husband.”78_{This is important to consider when} making efforts for victims to safely return to society.

Gendered Victimisation

Tutsi women were doubly violated -- as Tutsi and as women. This idea has been emphasised by Kimberle Crenshaw, a leading scholar on race and gender issues, who proposed that the Hutu army and militia raped and sexually violated Tutsi women because of their position “in the intersection”.79

Having considered the 2,000-5,000 pregnancies that had been caused by rape (based on the probability that result of rape would be conception one time in every hundred), the UN's Special Rapporteur on Rwanda Rene´ Degni-Se´gui estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women had been raped during the genocide.80_{During the 12 weeks of intense} horror, “rape was the rule and its absence the exception.”81_{Consequently, very few rape} victims were allowed to survive.82

77 Hogg, p. 74.

78 Government of Rwanda, Ministry of Gender and Promotion of the Family, ‘Projet ‘Enqueˆte Socioculturelle sur les Attitudes, les Pratiques, les Croyances en Rapport avec le Genre’, in Grandes Tendances Socio-Culturelles: Re´sultats de la Recherche Documentaire et des Interviews, Centre Gasabo, November 1999. p. 19 cited by Hogg (2010).

79 Kimberle Crenshaw, ‘On Intersectionality’ cited in Green, pp. 767-768.

80 Binaifer Nowrojee, ‘Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence During the Rwanda Genocide and its Aftermath’ (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), cited by Lisa Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’, p. 393.

81 Cited by Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda’ p. 81.

82 F. U. Layika 'War crimes against women in Rwanda’, in Without Reservation: The Beijing Tribunal on Accountability for Women's Human Rights. Niamh Reilly (NJ: The Center for Women's Global Leadership, 1995), p. 39.

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In 1999, the Association of Widows of the April Genocide (AVEGA) interviewed rape victims. One widowed survivor explained that “there is a very bad joke around that any woman who has survived, has been raped. Although it is a bad joke, it seems that a big proportion of those who survived, most of the time, it was because of an act of—it is because we were raped. And the person who raped, took you and said that you are the wife after he raped you. But most of the time they killed the whole family.”83_{Years after their experience of} sexual violence and rape, victims are still suffering from the trauma of the genocide. The common problems that rape victims face are: the dilemma of whether to disclose the rape; illegal abortion, pregnancy, psychological problems and medical conditions. Moreover, continued sexual victimization from injuries can further affect the victims, especially if the appropriate resources are not available. A clinic that treats such survivors claims that over half the rape victims are HIV-positive.84

Poverty is also common among the rape survivors. As women, under Rwandan law, victims cannot inherit from their deceased husband or other male relatives. Many are also too traumatized to work and earn a living85_{. This double victimisation is an aspect that many} outreach programs aim to tackle.

There are also are many physiological and psychological complications. In Rwanda, “it is not unusual for rape survivors to become social outcasts”, Binaifer Nowrojee, a consultant to the women survivors explains.86_{The destitution of survivors that are now widowed, orphaned,} or abandoned, “has led many Rwandan rape survivors to tell investigators that death would have been a preferable fate.” 87_{In the words of Sharlach, “the devastation that follows rape} makes it a particularly effective tool of genocide because it destroys the morale of a woman, her family, and perhaps her entire community.”88

The rapes during the genocide in Rwanda are in line with the United Nations Convention on Genocide (1948), which does not require death among members of the targeted community

83 AVEGA anonymous interview by Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’, p. 393.

84 AVEGA anonymous interview by Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’, p. 393.

85 US Department of State, ‘Rwanda Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996’, (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 1997) p. 69.

86 Binaifer Nowrojee, pp. 49–59.

87 Nowrojee, pp. 49–59.

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to constitute genocide. By “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” in “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”; each of these instances may be implemented or facilitated by the rape of women in the community of a targeted group.89

The acts committed, as well as their incitement, had violated Tutsi women's rights under a number of international treaties. 90_{But only within the last few decades have many scholars} begun to treat rape as a human rights violation, and now courts have a significant amount of power to help to shape public opinion on this matter.91

The Bosnian Genocide

The sexual violence during the genocide in Rwanda followed a pattern similar to the ethnic cleansing campaign in the former Yugoslavia. There too, nationalist militias “waged ethnic conflict against women's bodies” and used rape as a tactic to cause death or psychological and physical harm to women and girls.92

It has been estimated that from 1991 and 1995, between 20,000 and 50,000 women and girls were raped during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.93_{Although these rapes were} mostly carried out by Bosnian Serb forces, men from all ethnic groups participated in the crime throughout the conflict. Serb captors often told the Bosniak women that the intention of the rape was to impregnate them, and in many cases the soldiers ‘intentionally detained women until abortion was no longer possible.’94_{In an interview, board member of the} African Leadership Centre Alice Karekezi stated that “The Serbian was trying to have children from Muslim women. Here, for Rwanda it wasn’t used like that. Pregnancy was a

consequence, but not aimed to have children through them. But the goal of the men … was to weaken, to destroy... the Tutsi, in Rwanda.”95

89 See the discussion in Charli Carpenter, ‘Forced maternity, children’s rights and the Genocide Convention: a theoretical analysis’, pp 224–227.

90 Green, pp. 767-768.

91 Sharlach, ‘Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda’, p. 90.

92 Ibid;

94 JLM Commission of Experts’ Final Report (S/1994/674), Parts I and II, (United Nations Security Council, May 27, 1994).

95 Interview of Alice Karekezi, Special Monitor for Women’s Human Rights at the ICTR, Arusha, Butare, Rwanda, November 12, 1998, conducted by Lisa Sharlach, ‘Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda’, p. 100.

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Furthermore, the efforts of the perpetrators to degrade the femininity of female victims during the genocide was extremely prevalent, this included the removal of victims’ genitals and opening pregnant bellies.96_{This represents an underlying theme of gendered tactics that} were used during the conflict.

Similar to the survivors of sexual violence in Rwanda, in addition to coping with the rape-related injuries and trauma that they face in the aftermath of assaults, Bosniak survivors are also forced to confront a culture where if a woman is raped, she is forever dishonoured. In the former Yugoslavia, ‘family honour and ethnic group identity are enmeshed with female chastity.’97_{As many in the region tend to view rape as a humiliation of the entire family;} “they do not perceive the raped women and girls to be innocent victims” and in some cases, “it may seem that the only way to restore the family’s honour may be the death of the family member defiled by the rape.”98_{This shows how the extremely strong stigma associated with} victims of rape vastly complicates efforts to document and also punish the crime.

-Despite common perceptions, women have participated in genocide in a variety, whether as bystanders or perpetrators themselves. Women’s experiences are multifaceted, and it should not be shocking that women are capable of acting in highly destructive ways.99_When exploring the perceptions held of women involved in the perpetration of genocide, at

grassroots level or politically, we have noted that women may encounter a different experience than their male counterparts: they are likely to be under-represented among those suspected of the perpetration of crimes within genocide.Rarely engaged in physical murder, most such women feel hardly responsible, or even not at all. This is believed by both themselves and by those responsible for bringing them to justice. 100

Gendered imagery of female perpetrators as the ‘evil woman’ or ‘monster’, has been widely portrayed in the media and has often been at play in their encounters with the law. Such women who do not conform to gender expectations are mistakenly treated as aberrations of

98 Ibid; p. 98.

99 Ibid; p. 102.

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the female sex.101_{Hogg reminds us that “women in leadership positions who committed} atrocities during the genocide were not ‘monsters’, nor had they wandered from their quintessentially good selves. Rather, these women comprise individuals who were capable of great good but also of vast wrongdoing, at least partly because they were convinced by the genocidal ideology.”102

Exploring the cultures of society, especially from a gendered perspective, has uncovered a sinister explanation for sexual violence against women in communities in Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, women symbolize the honour of the group, as ‘mothers of the nation’ and as ‘transmitters of culture.’ The symbolism of destroying a woman’s honour through rape is ultimately reflective of dishonouring the targeted ethnic group. And afterward, it is not uncommon for the victim to be expelled from their family as well as ostracized from the community, in an attempt to restore the group’s honour.

101 Ibid; p. 101.

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Chapter Three: Masculine Gender Perceptions

In this chapter I shall explain the male experience of men and the effects that expectations of gender roles have affected them, in contrast to women. By firstly viewing their expected role in the family alongside the public realm, we are exposed to the pressures of society to conform to certain aspects of life that differ from women. In doing so I will then cover how the uses of hate Propaganda in gendered terms has enhanced a greater divide between perpetrator and victim, followed by the devastating effects this had on society.

Gendered Expectations of Men

Across the world, men are often expected to be protectors of their families, as well as of their country. Men who refuse to step forward and participate in times of conflict are often denounced as cowards. Adam Jones raises the issue worth addressing in this context, in that as with women experiencing violence, is the gendered continuum of violence relevant for men who are victimized by violence? Questioning; “are there, within patriarchies, specific forms of violence against men who are not complicit in women's oppression, who are seen as ‘non-masculine’ or men whose masculinity does not ‘fit into’ or threatens mainstream patriarchal constructions”, therefore men who are not ‘generic men’?103_{This is an area many} scholars are beginning to consider.

African Rights have explored the way that Hutu men in Rwanda seeking to flee combat with the RPF, had been scapegoated hardly less than ordinary Tutsis. This had been exposed by an influential Hutu led radio station known for spreading hatred across the country, where an announcer demanded: “If you see deserters, arrest them wherever they are, even on roadblocks, and send them back to their barracks… What are those sons of dogs fleeing from? … Let them save their country. They ought not to escape. Beat them up, refuse them food, drinks, take them to the authorities so that they can go back to the battlefield … They have to fight and fight the enemy … To flee is out of the question.”104_{These kinds of tactics} mobilized the Hutu in a way which incited violence even within their own group. It is important to acknowledge this sort of victimisation within the discussion of gender perspectives.

104 Quoted in African Rights, Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, revised edition (London: African Rights, 1995), p. 82.

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Human Rights Watch have exposed an officer who inspected a commune supposedly ‘negligent’ in its genocidal duties. The officer had asked if there were no more men in the commune, in other words “meaning men who could deal with ‘security’ problems

themselves.” 105_{This instance here reflects the gendered expectations and pressure of men’s} involvement in the genocide as well as in society.

Another officer ‘Commandant Mike Tango’, was a hard-line militant who followed orders from Rwandan Politician and now convicted genocidaire, Léon Mugesera. In his demands to the public, Tango spoke of how “Hutu Power was to be implemented by a ‘popular army of strong young men”’. He then called for each commune to establish a battalion of “robust young men” to receive military training.106

Gendered Propaganda Methods

A vast amount of Propaganda in Rwanda was directed towards intensifying the martial sensibilities of young Hutu men. In 1992, before the genocide took place, Mugesera presented a renowned vitriolic speech to emphasise the expectations and involvement of men. In proclaiming; “I know you are men … who do not let themselves be invaded, who refuse to be scorned,” Mugesera set the stage in what was expected of these men.107 The intensive propaganda campaign fuelled and funded by Hutu extremists “was perhaps the most effective element’ of the genocidal plan in Rwanda”.108_{The government conducted} “a structured attempt to use media to influence awareness, attitudes, or behaviour” as a means to incite hatred against the Tutsi across the country.109_{It has been argued that it took} up to four years of preparation to make such violence on a large scale possible, and that before the 1990s, the actual genocide would have been inconceivable. By disseminating propaganda through the media, the Rwandan government appropriated the mass rapes that occurred as part of the genocidal process.110

105 Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999) p. 459.

106 Ibid; p. 139.

107 Ibid; p. 84.

108 Jones, ‘Gender and genocide’, p. 279.

109 Christine L. Kellow & H. Leslie Steeves, ‘The Role of Radio in the Rwandan Genocide’ (48 J. Comm. 107, 1998) p. 123. See also Prosecutor v. Akayesu, Judgment, No. ICTR-96-4-T, 731 (Sept. 2, 1998).

110 United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR), ‘Fundamental Freedoms: Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women’ p. 17.

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One genocide survivor had explained how the media was used to prepare society; “They made up the commandments, the commandments of the Hutu. ‘The Tutsi woman is bad, the Tutsi woman is a prostitute, the Tutsi woman is an informant/spy’. All this, all this propaganda, was on the radio and the TV. It led to many sentiments against the Tutsi women, that one should kill them, that if the Tutsi woman married a Hutu, the kids, even, should be killed. It was the media campaign that prepared the genocide.”111_{Even years} before the genocide began, Tutsi women were frequently the ‘centrepiece’ of propagandist efforts to heighten ethnic tensions and engender hatred.112_{On the 10th December 1990, an} issue of the Rwandan Kangura magazine displayed ‘The Ten Commandments’ of the Hutu. What stands out, is that the very first of these ‘commandments’ deals specifically with women:

1. "Every Muhuru should know that a Mututsi woman, wherever she is, works for the interest of the Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Muhutu who: — marries a Tutsi woman —befriends a Tutsi woman —employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or concubine."

2. "Every Muhutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good

secretaries and more honest?"

3. "Bahutu women, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason."113

In simultaneously degrading and sexualizing the Tutsi women, alongside existing stereotypes and ethnic jealousies; the government’s propaganda campaign “created a climate in which the mass rape of Tutsi women appeared to be an appropriate form of retribution for their purported arrogance, immorality, hyper-sexuality, and espionage.”114

111Interview of anonymous survivor, AVEGA, (Association of Widows of the April Genocide), Kigali, Rwanda, November 10, 1998; conducted by Lisa Sharlach, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Agents and Objects of Genocide’, p. 393-4.

112 Llezile L. Green, ‘Gender hate propaganda and sexual violence in the Rwanda genocide: argument for intersectionality in international law’ in Columbia Human Rights Law Review 33:3 (Cengage Learning Inc., 2002) p. 749.

113 UNHCHR(1998) pp. 11-12.

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Llezlie Green Coleman, author and Professor of Law, explains how the characterization created by the Hutu propagandists of the pretty Tutsi woman as the manipulative sexual infiltrator “was a catalyst for the mass sexual violence that occurred during the 1994 genocide.”115_{Portrayed as “evil seductresses”, Tutsi women were transformed into the} ultimate enemy, completely dedicated to humiliating Hutu men as a means to conquer Rwanda. Through the use of sexualized imagery and stereotypes, the attack on Tutsi women “had consequently incited their sexual violation by actors in the genocide”.116_{Sexual violence} against Tutsi women was an integral part of the genocidal campaign, not a mere side

effect.117

Male Victims of the Bosnian Genocide

In further efforts to incite terror during the ethnic cleansing campaign in the Former

Yugoslavia, some 3,000 men and boys were raped during the conflict. This has been a much less talked about topic compared to their female counterparts.118_{Sexual violence}

perpetuated against male victims served to humiliate and assert dominance over the target group.119_{Most assaults against men took place in detention camps where genital mutilation} and sexual torture was not uncommon means of abuse.120_{Very few survived such assaults,} and those who did were unlikely to come forward as a result of the great difficultly of stigma surrounding the topic of sexual abuse of men. The masculinist culture in Bosnia promotes fears for male victims from being ostracized from their communities. Commonly, these will lead to accusations of homosexuality of the victim which will ultimately strip male victims from their masculinity; most likely resulting in further abuse.121

Along with physical trauma, male survivors of sexual violence, like women, experience a range of mental health issues, some resulting in taking their own life. When dealing with societies recovering from genocide or mass categorical violence, it is crucial that cultures are looked at intensively to recognise pitfalls of victim recovery.

115 Llezile L. Green, p. 774.

116 Green, p. 774.

117 Green, p. 734.

118All Survivors Project. “Legacies and Lessons: Sexual violence against men and boys in Sri Lanka and Bosnia & Herzegovinia" (UCLA School of Law: Health & Human Rights Project, 2017).

119 Amy E. Randall, ‘Genocide and Gender in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Survey’ (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).

120 All Survivors Project (2017).

121 Evert Ketting, “Sexual Torture of Men in Croatia and Other Conflict Situations: An Open Secret" (Reproductive Health Matters 12:23, 2004) pp. 68–77.

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There is little evidence of sexual violence against the male victims of the Rwandan genocide, whether that it did not or rarely occur, or perhaps the subject area is such a taboo topic that it is not spoken about in the community. This would definitely be an area of interest for researchers in this field in the future and something that should be actively looked into.

-In agreement with Sharlach, survivors of sexual violence in Rwanda and the former

Yugoslavia are in some sense veterans. Survivors of this unfathomable crime are firstly; “the invisible living casualties of the genocide that must live with the physical, psychological, and emotional aftermath” and second; in regard to their second victimisation in the response of their society in their hostility toward survivors of rape.122_{As some women can be powerful} within patriarchy, some men can indeed be vulnerable. As highlighted by Adam Jones, “not all men benefit equally within patriarchies, especially in the context where patriarchies coexist comfortably with other forms of inequalities based on class, race, caste, ethnicity, religious and sexual orientation.”123_{Here, we can recognise theories of men victimised by} violence as well.

We have seen the role gendered hate propaganda played in the incitement of genocide in Rwanda in general, as well as in terms of sexual violence against victims. It is, above all, crucial to grasp a well-informed understanding of how prior ethnic tensions can

consequently erupt into genocide.124

Although stereotypical gender roles vary in cultures, determining the nature of atrocities in genocide or mass categorical violence, differing perpetrator groups aim to “draw on their own emotional and social experiences when devising ritual tortures,” this enables us to identify patterns across various different instances of the same crime.125

In the Rwandan genocide, the aspect of gender may seem to stand out as more “extraordinarily intricate and multifaceted” than other genocides or events of mass

categorical violence, however closer scrutiny of other instances show gendered violence is more prominent than we once thought.126_{The Rwandan and Bosnian genocides both offer}

123 Carvell quoted in Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide’, p. 279.

124 Green, p. 733.

125 Von Joeden-Forgey, ‘Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and Prevention’, p. 95.

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important evidence that by gendering genocide, “we are able to provide powerful insights into the outbreak, evolution, and defining character of genocidal killing.”127

Having an insight into gender relations before the genocide took place can explain the contrasting actions of perpetrators as men and women, as well as gendered victimisation during and after the events of mass categorical violence take place. In terms of the role of sexual violence in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, although not representative of all instances where rape has been used as a tool of genocide, we can conclude on the basis that “rape as genocide appears to occur to ethnic groups that strongly stigmatize rape survivors rather than rapists.”128_{As we have also seen in the former Yugoslavia, it is not only women} that are affected by sexual violence. Recognising male victims is crucial in the recovery process of damaged countries. Furthermore, the ‘second-victimisation’ experienced by victims of sexual violence continues long after the initial assault and such psychological, social, and physical effects of their experience continues to impact their lives.

Chapter Four

The Gendered Path of Transitional Justice

127 Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda’, p. 65.

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In the previous chapters, we have seen the importance of looking at genocide and mass categorical violence through a gendered lens. In this chapter, we will look at how these gender perspectives have affected and impacted men and women differently in the recovery process of damaged communities. Transitional Justice is a process of restoring communities and countries affected by violence, conflict, mass categorical violence and genocide. It is the response of the international community to address large scale human rights violations of countries in need of external assistance to bring justice to those responsible for such crimes. Mechanisms of Transitional Justice include judicial and non-judicial court systems,

reparations programs, Truth Commissions as well as other reforms. These are commonly recognised as the formal practises of justice.

In this section I will explore the restrictions and issues faced by the International courts in dealing with genocide and mass categorical violence. I will also address the progress in Rwanda in recognising forms of sexual violence as genocide and how other countries can follow the same example. I also look at the grass-root community-based court systems and efforts to remove gendered stigmatisation over taboo topics. From a gendered view, we can locate how victims recover after trauma in societies that have created an uncomfortable place to live. Furthermore, I provide a comparative analysis of Rwanda and Northern Uganda’s journey of Transitional Justice and suggest how improvements can be made toward the recovery of both. Lastly, I explore the issues faced by victims ‘suffering in silence’. International Courts

Dealing with the huge numbers of participants of the Rwandan genocide has proven to be difficult. Given the enormity of the task, the prosecutors’ main goal has been to target people charged with violent crimes committed more overtly, as these crimes are easier to prove. Former Deputy Ombudsman Bernadette Kanzayire has explained that the

government has predominantly pursued just those who killed, as “it is difficult to find proof and witnesses against people who participated in a less obvious manner.” 129_{Gerald Gahima,} the Former Attorney General in Rwanda, has explained that “prosecutors take the easiest cases to court; the most brutal, horrific crimes that occurred in public. A weak case takes