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The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence
In the 100 days of genocide that ravaged Rwanda in 1994, one million people were killed and as many as 500,000 women and girls were raped. No one was spared. Grandmothers were raped in front of their grandchildren; young girls witnessed their families being massacred before being taken as sex slaves. Nearly all the women who survived were victims of sexual violence or were profoundly affected by it. An astounding 70 percent are HIV-positive. In Rwanda’s social and cultural climate, survivors who speak out face discrimination and isolation. The Men Who Killed Me features testimonials from 17 Rwandan survivors. Through their narratives and Samer Muscati’s powerful portraits of them, these 16 women and one man bear witness not only to the crimes they and their countrymen endured, but to the incredible courage that has allowed them to survive and flourish.
184 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2009
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June 24, 2016
"This is not rape out of control. It is rape under control. It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others; rape as spectacle. It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. It is rape as genocide" - Catherine A. Mackinnon "Rape, Genocide, and Women's Human Rights" as quoted by de Brouwer et al.
I picked this book up because I was, frankly, a little disgusted by the neglect of sexual violence survivors' narratives in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with our Families. He made one vague reference to sexual torture, and then moved on to his mostly phallocentric accounts of the genocide. I felt he had ignored a large number of victims, had missed the opportunity to tell their stories. That is why I approached this book, to hear the testimonials of victims of sexual violence, to facilitate their bearing witness to gender based violence. To listen when they speak.
The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence is harrowing. It speaks through testimonies of sixteen women and one man (I am so grateful(?) they acknowledged male victims of sexual violence) who all survived sexual violence during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. They reveal their drastically different and yet tragically similar experiences. For instance, the overwhelming majority state that they no longer felt fear, sadness, pain after being repeatedly raped, that they were numb and apathetic to the world. They felt they were already dead, they had already been killed (these are the men who killed me, one woman states). They felt they were no longer human after being raped, that they were less than a human being, dirty, sullied, animal. They faced mantras of Hutu rhetoric before, during, and after their rapes; "I want to see what a Tutsi woman tastes like," "I want to humiliate you before I kill you," you Tutsi women are always so proud, looking down on us Hutu men. Now we can have you whenever we want," and "your days are numbered." The victims were, and are, ostracized post-genocide for their HIV-positive diagnoses, mostly originating from their rapists and often spreading to their spouses and children inadvertently. They are raising their broken, blended families as single mothers/sisters/cousins/caregivers despite debilitating fatigue and stigmas.
Rwanda's population was 70% female post-genocide (1994), the workforce 55% female, Parliament made up of 56% women. And yet, rape and HIV-positive stigmas remain crippling for these victims. Poverty reduces these survivors' access to proper nutrition, housing, medical and psychological therapy, and of course, retroviral medication to stave off AIDS. Survivors who bear witness in gacaca courts (community run) see their rapists released after little to no jail time; their families' murderers live next door to them. Some sexual violence survivors who speak out against perpetrators are robbed, beaten, or murdered. Women are the new face of Rwanda, and many of these women are survivors of sexual violence. This book deals with the nitty-gritty legal details of the gacaca system, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the statistics that make up the 'fact' of sexual violence as a tool of genocide. This is all vitally important to understand the framework of post genocide Rwanda and its attempts at reparations and reconciliation. However, the testimonials included in Part Two speak volumes more than the stats and legal jargon. The portraits are haunting, eyes stare out at the reader, accusatory, damaged, angry, fierce. The faces of fighters, of survivors. The accompanying testimonies blur together until you feel sick. You forget which woman lived where, how many men raped her, how many children she has, how many family members she lost. That compulsion that the brain has to combine every narrative read into one concept of experience does the victims no justice. Removing the face and the name from the experience, from their unique moments of reliving their trauma, their catharsis, compartmentalizes the traumatic images and words in ways the victims cannot, escaping the reality of the Rwandan Genocide.
The Men Who Killed Me gives each victim an opportunity to cleanse themselves of their story, their pain, their repressed emotion, to bear witness to the horror they survived. Is their audience ready to listen?
I picked this book up because I was, frankly, a little disgusted by the neglect of sexual violence survivors' narratives in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with our Families. He made one vague reference to sexual torture, and then moved on to his mostly phallocentric accounts of the genocide. I felt he had ignored a large number of victims, had missed the opportunity to tell their stories. That is why I approached this book, to hear the testimonials of victims of sexual violence, to facilitate their bearing witness to gender based violence. To listen when they speak.
The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence is harrowing. It speaks through testimonies of sixteen women and one man (I am so grateful(?) they acknowledged male victims of sexual violence) who all survived sexual violence during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. They reveal their drastically different and yet tragically similar experiences. For instance, the overwhelming majority state that they no longer felt fear, sadness, pain after being repeatedly raped, that they were numb and apathetic to the world. They felt they were already dead, they had already been killed (these are the men who killed me, one woman states). They felt they were no longer human after being raped, that they were less than a human being, dirty, sullied, animal. They faced mantras of Hutu rhetoric before, during, and after their rapes; "I want to see what a Tutsi woman tastes like," "I want to humiliate you before I kill you," you Tutsi women are always so proud, looking down on us Hutu men. Now we can have you whenever we want," and "your days are numbered." The victims were, and are, ostracized post-genocide for their HIV-positive diagnoses, mostly originating from their rapists and often spreading to their spouses and children inadvertently. They are raising their broken, blended families as single mothers/sisters/cousins/caregivers despite debilitating fatigue and stigmas.
Rwanda's population was 70% female post-genocide (1994), the workforce 55% female, Parliament made up of 56% women. And yet, rape and HIV-positive stigmas remain crippling for these victims. Poverty reduces these survivors' access to proper nutrition, housing, medical and psychological therapy, and of course, retroviral medication to stave off AIDS. Survivors who bear witness in gacaca courts (community run) see their rapists released after little to no jail time; their families' murderers live next door to them. Some sexual violence survivors who speak out against perpetrators are robbed, beaten, or murdered. Women are the new face of Rwanda, and many of these women are survivors of sexual violence. This book deals with the nitty-gritty legal details of the gacaca system, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the statistics that make up the 'fact' of sexual violence as a tool of genocide. This is all vitally important to understand the framework of post genocide Rwanda and its attempts at reparations and reconciliation. However, the testimonials included in Part Two speak volumes more than the stats and legal jargon. The portraits are haunting, eyes stare out at the reader, accusatory, damaged, angry, fierce. The faces of fighters, of survivors. The accompanying testimonies blur together until you feel sick. You forget which woman lived where, how many men raped her, how many children she has, how many family members she lost. That compulsion that the brain has to combine every narrative read into one concept of experience does the victims no justice. Removing the face and the name from the experience, from their unique moments of reliving their trauma, their catharsis, compartmentalizes the traumatic images and words in ways the victims cannot, escaping the reality of the Rwandan Genocide.
The Men Who Killed Me gives each victim an opportunity to cleanse themselves of their story, their pain, their repressed emotion, to bear witness to the horror they survived. Is their audience ready to listen?
March 31, 2012
I read this book for my Around the World in 50 Books Challenge. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. It will disturb you. If it doesn't disturb you than you're really messed up. Seriously. That's just how I see it whether you agree or not.
"Whether I'm in the fields, or at home, or at the market, I will never get the smell of semen out of my nostrils." that is a quote from one of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. She was chained to a bed and raped repeatedly for 3 months. This woman among 2 others are the reason that this book was even written. For me that sentence is the most powerful sentence I have ever read in a book. When I read it for the first time it evoked several feelings in me. The first was disgust, then came anger and then an overwhelming feeling of sorrow. I read that quote several times and each time my feelings intensified. I knew no matter how disturbed I would be that I had to continue reading the book. If I didn't I felt as though I would be letting the survivors down.
The book opens with a brief overview of the cause of the genocide followed by information on sexual violence rape reports by country and era(I think). I found both of these features to be helpful as they gave both background information as well as information on other countries that I did not know about.
Inside there are the horrific accounts of 17 survivors of the "African Holocaust" .16 women and 1 young man were brave enough to share their stories with the world in the hope that they will bring attention to the plight of the people of Rwanda.
To me it seemed as though each account of sexual violence became more and more extreme as the book went on. There were stories from women who were still little girls at the time the genocide occurred many of them if not all ended up contracting HIV from their rapists.
Each account broke my heart. I wanted to reach through the pages of the book to hug these survivors, to show them that someone cares, that someone has them in their heart. The violence that these people suffered is incomprehensible. 800,000 people were murdered in 90 days of fighting while the international community did nothing. That is what made me the angriest I think. Knowing that nothing was being done to help end the genocide that wiped almost one million people off the face of the earth. Men, women, and children were butchered regardless of age or status. The young and the old were treated like "cockroaches" as the Hutu fighters called them. It's unfathomable to me that this was allowed to happen.
When the genocide was happening I just turned 4. I was celebrating my fourth birthday while other children younger than I were being hacked to death in an effort to wipe out the future generation of Tutsi people. that really put the accounts into perspective to me. It made me think...what right to a childhood did I have one so many others were cut short? What right to complain did I have one other children were being abused and murdered? The answer...is none. I don't have that right. That's the way I see it you don't have to agree but that is my opinion and this is my blog.
As disturbing as the book is, the people who told their stories still manage for the most part to keep holding on to one thing. Hope. How inspiring is that? After everything that happened to them they still manage to hope for something better and they do not give up. Far from it these people are still fighting. They're fighting for survival for themselves and their families while living in poverty. These people are true heros, true survivors and they deserve more than what they are getting in life.
Many of the women have to live in the same communities as the men who attacked and raped them, killed their families or raped their family members. For them their nightmares will never end as long as the current legal system in Rwanda stays the same. Bribery is common place and often the sentences for the criminals do not fit the crimes. sometimes the victims are bought off and sometimes so are the judges. Very little is being done for the Rwandan people by the international community that stood by and let the slaughter...there is no other word for what happened during those 90 days it was a slaughter. It sickens me.
While the subject matter was difficult to read I highly recommend it to all. These stories must be read. To not do so is the equivalent to sweeping these people under the proverbial rug. The people who wrote the stories down for the victims did so in such a way that they were not offensive. I applaud the survivors of the genocide and I hope that things get better for the people there but I know this will only happen if people, every day regular run of the mill average people do something to help. I urge you to research charities (make sure they are reputable) and donate your time, money, possessions where and when you can. Please read this book and educate yourselves so that we can avoid things like this from happening in the future. This is by far the most powerful book I have ever read and now I'm reading other books to educate myself further on this topic. I hope I encouraged someone else to read this book. It's worth it. Trust me it will make you value things a lot more.
"Whether I'm in the fields, or at home, or at the market, I will never get the smell of semen out of my nostrils." that is a quote from one of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. She was chained to a bed and raped repeatedly for 3 months. This woman among 2 others are the reason that this book was even written. For me that sentence is the most powerful sentence I have ever read in a book. When I read it for the first time it evoked several feelings in me. The first was disgust, then came anger and then an overwhelming feeling of sorrow. I read that quote several times and each time my feelings intensified. I knew no matter how disturbed I would be that I had to continue reading the book. If I didn't I felt as though I would be letting the survivors down.
The book opens with a brief overview of the cause of the genocide followed by information on sexual violence rape reports by country and era(I think). I found both of these features to be helpful as they gave both background information as well as information on other countries that I did not know about.
Inside there are the horrific accounts of 17 survivors of the "African Holocaust" .16 women and 1 young man were brave enough to share their stories with the world in the hope that they will bring attention to the plight of the people of Rwanda.
To me it seemed as though each account of sexual violence became more and more extreme as the book went on. There were stories from women who were still little girls at the time the genocide occurred many of them if not all ended up contracting HIV from their rapists.
Each account broke my heart. I wanted to reach through the pages of the book to hug these survivors, to show them that someone cares, that someone has them in their heart. The violence that these people suffered is incomprehensible. 800,000 people were murdered in 90 days of fighting while the international community did nothing. That is what made me the angriest I think. Knowing that nothing was being done to help end the genocide that wiped almost one million people off the face of the earth. Men, women, and children were butchered regardless of age or status. The young and the old were treated like "cockroaches" as the Hutu fighters called them. It's unfathomable to me that this was allowed to happen.
When the genocide was happening I just turned 4. I was celebrating my fourth birthday while other children younger than I were being hacked to death in an effort to wipe out the future generation of Tutsi people. that really put the accounts into perspective to me. It made me think...what right to a childhood did I have one so many others were cut short? What right to complain did I have one other children were being abused and murdered? The answer...is none. I don't have that right. That's the way I see it you don't have to agree but that is my opinion and this is my blog.
As disturbing as the book is, the people who told their stories still manage for the most part to keep holding on to one thing. Hope. How inspiring is that? After everything that happened to them they still manage to hope for something better and they do not give up. Far from it these people are still fighting. They're fighting for survival for themselves and their families while living in poverty. These people are true heros, true survivors and they deserve more than what they are getting in life.
Many of the women have to live in the same communities as the men who attacked and raped them, killed their families or raped their family members. For them their nightmares will never end as long as the current legal system in Rwanda stays the same. Bribery is common place and often the sentences for the criminals do not fit the crimes. sometimes the victims are bought off and sometimes so are the judges. Very little is being done for the Rwandan people by the international community that stood by and let the slaughter...there is no other word for what happened during those 90 days it was a slaughter. It sickens me.
While the subject matter was difficult to read I highly recommend it to all. These stories must be read. To not do so is the equivalent to sweeping these people under the proverbial rug. The people who wrote the stories down for the victims did so in such a way that they were not offensive. I applaud the survivors of the genocide and I hope that things get better for the people there but I know this will only happen if people, every day regular run of the mill average people do something to help. I urge you to research charities (make sure they are reputable) and donate your time, money, possessions where and when you can. Please read this book and educate yourselves so that we can avoid things like this from happening in the future. This is by far the most powerful book I have ever read and now I'm reading other books to educate myself further on this topic. I hope I encouraged someone else to read this book. It's worth it. Trust me it will make you value things a lot more.
February 22, 2025
Horrifying to read of the terrible things that people have done to each other and still do to each other today, but so important to be aware of. We won't make an end to this if we don't know what we're fighting. I admire the courage of the victims who shared their stories for this book.
July 20, 2024
Heel heftig. Heel belangrijk.
March 10, 2010
This is an absolute must-read for just anyone and a wake-up call to the world. I read a couple of books about the genocide in Rwanda, but this is an absolute must-read. The book's main topic is sexual violence (mostly done to women, but also to men) and consists of three parts: "The Roots of Sexual Violence in Rwanda", "Testimonials", and "Life After 'Death'".
The first part of the book is a desciption of the background in which sexual violence occurred, which is mostly about the origins of the Hutu-Tutsi divide in which the Tutsis were favored by the Belgian colonialists. The Tutsis were said to be of lighter skin and taller and thinner than Hutus. This created resentment among the Hutus and resulted in a series of killings, beginning in 1959. A popular uprising drove out the Tutsi king and from then on Hutus dominated the government. Violence against kept occurring throughout the years which culminated in the 1994 genocide. The direct incentive for the genocide was the assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. It's still unclear who assassinated him. It could've been either Tutsis or Hutus. What is clear is that the killings of Tutsis in 1994 was prepared for by Hutus and was organized. Radio and newspaper both played a major part in the genocide even before the genocide began. Tutsis were dehumanized by referring to them as "cockroaches" and "snakes". Sexual violence was done mostly to women, but also to men, and in a number of ways (for example: rape, mutilation, etc.). Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were subjected to sexual violence.
The second part of the book consists of thrilling testimonies and is told by 17 Rwandan survivors of the genocide (16 women and 1 man). I experienced anger, shock and sadness while reading these testimonies. It was really hard to read a lot of testimonies in one sequence. It's hard to imagine that these things actually happened and still happen to people. I read this book a couple of weeks ago and now that I read a couple of more books about the genocide in Rwanda I still can't believe these things happened.
The third part of the book is about the aftermath of the sexual violence that occurred during the genocide. The women and man that testified in the book are all infected with HIV and experienced problems because of this. ARV-treatment (special treatment for HIV) is expensive and because of HIV a lot of people aren't able to work and to provide for their children and adopted children. This part of the book illustrates women and men experienced a lot of negative consequences from the sexual violence they endured. Not only do they have to deal with health issues, they're also stigmatized by society because of their HIV-infection. Often their rapists are people they knew and they often still live in the same neighborhood. This part of the book also looks at how there was and still is being dealt with the perpetrators of the genocide. The authors talk about the role of the Rwandan government, NGO', the UN and the international community.
In conclusion, I have to say that this is a horrible book in terms of the experiences the women and man talk about in the book. But I recommend it to everyone because in my opinion sexual violence is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. Someone once said that killing someone is taking away someone's life but raping someone is taking away somebody's soul.
I really urge to you read this book. Proceeds from the sales of this book go to Mukomeze, a Dutch charitable organization established to improve the lives of girls and women who survived sexual violence in the Rwandan genocide.
I would like to conclude my review with the following quote by Eve Ensler: "Fragments, rape shrapnel, images, sensations that lodge forever in the body, in the soul. These testimonies are unbearable. The acts of hatred and violence unimaginable. The resiliency and kindness of the survivors beyond grace. I do not feel forgiving. I feel angry. I feel insane with outrage. (...) I urge you to be disturbed by what you have read, really disturbed. And then I urge you to get angry, get bold, become determined to do everything in your power to end this heinous violence everywhere in the world. End this violence that sustains gender equality, that keeps the world deeply and perilously imbalanced, forever at war. End this violence that gives global license to the destruction of women, that is the end of life itself."
The first part of the book is a desciption of the background in which sexual violence occurred, which is mostly about the origins of the Hutu-Tutsi divide in which the Tutsis were favored by the Belgian colonialists. The Tutsis were said to be of lighter skin and taller and thinner than Hutus. This created resentment among the Hutus and resulted in a series of killings, beginning in 1959. A popular uprising drove out the Tutsi king and from then on Hutus dominated the government. Violence against kept occurring throughout the years which culminated in the 1994 genocide. The direct incentive for the genocide was the assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. It's still unclear who assassinated him. It could've been either Tutsis or Hutus. What is clear is that the killings of Tutsis in 1994 was prepared for by Hutus and was organized. Radio and newspaper both played a major part in the genocide even before the genocide began. Tutsis were dehumanized by referring to them as "cockroaches" and "snakes". Sexual violence was done mostly to women, but also to men, and in a number of ways (for example: rape, mutilation, etc.). Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were subjected to sexual violence.
The second part of the book consists of thrilling testimonies and is told by 17 Rwandan survivors of the genocide (16 women and 1 man). I experienced anger, shock and sadness while reading these testimonies. It was really hard to read a lot of testimonies in one sequence. It's hard to imagine that these things actually happened and still happen to people. I read this book a couple of weeks ago and now that I read a couple of more books about the genocide in Rwanda I still can't believe these things happened.
The third part of the book is about the aftermath of the sexual violence that occurred during the genocide. The women and man that testified in the book are all infected with HIV and experienced problems because of this. ARV-treatment (special treatment for HIV) is expensive and because of HIV a lot of people aren't able to work and to provide for their children and adopted children. This part of the book illustrates women and men experienced a lot of negative consequences from the sexual violence they endured. Not only do they have to deal with health issues, they're also stigmatized by society because of their HIV-infection. Often their rapists are people they knew and they often still live in the same neighborhood. This part of the book also looks at how there was and still is being dealt with the perpetrators of the genocide. The authors talk about the role of the Rwandan government, NGO', the UN and the international community.
In conclusion, I have to say that this is a horrible book in terms of the experiences the women and man talk about in the book. But I recommend it to everyone because in my opinion sexual violence is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. Someone once said that killing someone is taking away someone's life but raping someone is taking away somebody's soul.
I really urge to you read this book. Proceeds from the sales of this book go to Mukomeze, a Dutch charitable organization established to improve the lives of girls and women who survived sexual violence in the Rwandan genocide.
I would like to conclude my review with the following quote by Eve Ensler: "Fragments, rape shrapnel, images, sensations that lodge forever in the body, in the soul. These testimonies are unbearable. The acts of hatred and violence unimaginable. The resiliency and kindness of the survivors beyond grace. I do not feel forgiving. I feel angry. I feel insane with outrage. (...) I urge you to be disturbed by what you have read, really disturbed. And then I urge you to get angry, get bold, become determined to do everything in your power to end this heinous violence everywhere in the world. End this violence that sustains gender equality, that keeps the world deeply and perilously imbalanced, forever at war. End this violence that gives global license to the destruction of women, that is the end of life itself."
December 24, 2017
One of the things that really strikes me about this story is that there are so many similarities. All these women of different ages and backgrounds. That men they had turned down previously saw it as an opportunity to rape, that so many of them were infected in HIV, that they live in poverty after the genocide and forced to live alongside the men that attacked and raped them with no justice given. The stories blurred somewhat because of these similarities and the very blatant grief and language they used. It wasn't the 'pretty words' that North American writers used when describing pain but frank language that I found refreshing and interesting to read. What struck me the most though was how none of them seemed to get any justice or support after the events. Absolutely nothing and that made me angry. The whole system appeared corrupt in trying to dole out reparation for what happened. The rapists and murderers were bought off and released, lawyers and officers were corrupt and the world has mostly forgotten that this even happened. The Holocaust is something everyone knows about and the Nuremberg trials afterward where many of the participants got what they deserved. Not so much with Rwanda. Few have heard about it, or the Residential schools in Canada or the Genocide and Slavery in Congo by King Leopold. The difference lays in the victims. These women are deemed "tainted" by their rape and infection of HIV and the stigma that comes from both results in few of them speaking out. Their skin colour and nationality makes it appear like just another period of violence in Africa instead of a systematic destruction of these people and especially their women. It happened in a novel I read after this one about the sex slaves in ISIS and then one before this one around Boko Harem. It is not talked about in the same way as the Holocaust. They are all tragedies we should be talking about but they haven't been - not in the same way. If I have one complaint it is the inclusion of a male victim. This is not to say that he shouldn't have his story told but the emphasis on women in the opening and ending paragraphs makes it seem out of place and glossed over. The right path in my opinion would have been to write a separate book altogether on the effects of male survivors of both violence and rape. This would have had more of an effect.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2018
Horrifying but amazing
January 20, 2022
Harrowing accounts from women who survived some of the worst excesses of systemic sexual violence used as a weapon of war.
April 9, 2025
A painful read, and sadly still a highly relevant topic.
December 15, 2012
"The Men Who Killed Me" is an absolutely devastating and heartbreaking read. I was horrified when reading about the atrocities committed against the women and young man as they recalled the sexual violence inflicted upon them during the genocide. The women discuss how the men who raped them killed their very essence- their joy, their hope, their future, their will to live. It is devastating to read how the women were gang raped- women as young as thirteen and as old as eighty- how they had objects inserted inside them to further mutilate them (in some instance for abortions on pregnant women), how they were raped day in and day out. After surviving so much these women now live in poverty, are infected with HIV as a result of their rapes, haved had children born of rape, and are even rejected by their communities and even their own husbands because of their HIV affliction. The men who committed the rapes were barbaric. One poor women recalls how they humiliated her- they raped her, inserted items into her private parts, stuck their penises in her nose. She says that she will never get the smell of semen out of her nostrils. Two young men who raped a thirteen year old year said that she might be too young to rape but her vagina wasn't. It is very distressing and horrifying the evil ordinary human beings are capable of. Their powerful stories will forever be seered into my memory and are a call to action against the war on women. The book is broken up into three sections; the first section briefly offers a history of the sexual violence that occured in Rwanda and in other countries during armed conflict. The second section consists of the testimonies of the survivors and beautiful portraits are included within their stories. The final section discusses life after the genocide and the success and failure of reconciliation in Rwanda. They also offer information on ways we can help the survivors in Rwanda and how we can make a difference. This is an incredibly powerful and important book. I highly recommend it.
July 18, 2014
This is one of the hardest books I have ever read, but maybe the most important. The stories of the seventeen survivors in this book shows how sexual violence towards women is used during conflict as a tool to harm women and their societies, and how in an extreme it can be a tool of genocide that impacts the survivors even today, as the international community fails to recognize the impact sexual violence has had on the women of Rwanda. It also contains important analysis and perspective on the justice delivered by the ICTR and Gacaca Courts in Rwanda as they seek to transition to a more just society, and how sexual violence survivors risk being alienated by both processes entirely. Sexual violence should not be treated as a secondary issue during conflicts or in the post-conflict period and it needs to be better addressed by transitional justice measures. If you don't believe me, read this book.
November 5, 2011
I read this book in one day. A number of times I had to set it down and reflect on the horrific things found within it, but every time I just found myself being pulled back. It was impossible to stop reading this book. While not for the faint of heart, it is a necessary read in order to fully understand the atrocities experienced by so many women during the Rwandan genocide. A truly eye opening book.
July 9, 2011
Incredibly disturbing factual account of rape, torture and genocide.
January 26, 2017
Disturbing; yet, a must read for all!
June 7, 2013
A very emotionally taxing yet necessary read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews