page_title: Rwandan genocide
section_title: Sexual violence
hierarchical_section_title: Rwandan genocide / Genocide / Sexual violence
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographs of Genocide Victims - Genocide Memorial Centre - Kigali - Rwanda Français&#160;: Photographies des victimes du génocide - Genocide Memorial Centre - Kigali - Rwanda
context_page_description: The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a mass slaughter of Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutu in Rwanda, which took place between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War.
  In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel group composed of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage in the war, and the Rwandan government led by President Juvénal Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords with the RPF on 4 August 1993. Many historians argue that a genocide against the Tutsi had been planned for at least a year. However, Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994 created a power vacuum and ended peace accords. Genocidal killings began the following day when soldiers, police, and militia executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders.
  The scale and brutality of the massacre caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings. Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or towns, many by their neighbors and fellow villagers.
context_section_description: Rape was used as a tool by the Interahamwe, the chief perpetrators, to separate the consciously heterogeneous population and to drastically exhaust the opposing group. The use of propaganda played an important role in both the genocide and the gender specific violence. The Hutu propaganda depicted Tutsi women as "a sexually seductive 'fifth column' in league with the Hutus' enemies". The exceptional brutality of the sexual violence, as well as the complicity of Hutu women in the attacks, suggests that the use of propaganda had been effective in the exploitation of gendered needs which had mobilized both females and males to participate. Soldiers of the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda and the Rwandan Defence Forces, including the Presidential Guard, and civilians also committed rape against mostly Tutsi women. Although Tutsi women were the main targets, moderate Hutu women were also raped.
  Along with the Hutu moderates, Hutu women who were married to or who hid Tutsis were also targeted. In his 1996 report on Rwanda, the UN Special Rapporteur Rene Degni-Segui stated, "Rape was the rule and its absence was the exception." He also noted, "Rape was systematic and was used as a weapon." With this thought and using methods of force and threat, the genocidaires forced others to stand by during rapes. A testimonial by a woman of the name Marie Louise Niyobuhungiro recalled seeing local peoples, other generals and Hutu men watching her get raped about 5 times a day. Even when she was kept under watch of a woman, she would give no sympathy or help and furthermore forced her to farm land in between rapes.
  Many of the survivors became infected with HIV from the HIV-infected men recruited by the genocidaires. During the conflict, Hutu extremists released hundreds of patients suffering from AIDS from hospitals, and formed them into "rape squads". The intent was to infect and cause a "slow, inexorable death" for their future Tutsi rape victims. Tutsi women were also targeted with the intent of destroying their reproductive capabilities. Sexual mutilation sometimes occurred after the rape and included mutilation of the vagina with machetes, knives, sharpened sticks, boiling water, and acid. Men were also the victims of sexual violation, including public mutilation of the genitals.
  Some experts have estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the genocide.
caption: Photographs of genocide victims displayed at the Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali
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