Rwanda

Types of Sexual Violence

While many women were massacred along with the men throughout the genocide, the perpetrators often spared women from death, instead sentencing them to rape and humiliation. The violation of Tutsi women was not a casualty of war, but "a step in the process of deconstruction of the Tutsi group-- destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself." The sexual violence took many forms. The Interahamwe militia and the military raped Tutsi women and girls, forced them into collective and individual sexual slavery, and mutilated them. Even very young children did not escape the terror; the victims ranged from two years old to over fifty years old. Furthermore, pregnant women or women who had recently given birth were not spared; their rapes frequently resulted in death from hemorrhaging and other medical complications. Moreover, the perpetrators forced some women "to kill their own children before or after being raped."

The militia worked in groups, taking Tutsi women from their homes or out of hiding and gang-raping them, often multiple times. Many of the women who survived an individual or gang rape were picked up by another group of Interahamwe and raped again. Furthermore, the military and civilian authorities--including regular soldiers, members of the national police force, members of the elite Presidential Guard, burgomasters, and heads of sectors--condoned and encouraged the sexual violence.

The militia commonly employed sexual mutilation and public humiliation to heighten the suffering of their victims. Some women and girls "were stripped and/or slashed and exposed to public mockery" while others "had pieces of trees branches pushed into their vagina." Moreover, the perpetrators tortured their victims by mutilating their genitals and cutting off their breasts and buttocks.

The military

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