Women in Rwanda 2: Violence

In my last post, I talked about the Rwandan stance that women nurturers and most effective in the home.  This post will be about the HUGE issue of domestic abuse in Rwanda. According to this article, over 57% of women experience gender based violence by their husbands.  I already shared my story of the woman who had been attacked by someone and no one would help her.  I was also told to not tell the emergency line that she had been attacked because then no one would come.   Of course, when I tell this story to Rwandans, they brush it off and say it is because she was a prostitute.  

No one seems to think that this is an overall problem and they are more pitying of my stupidity to ‘reward’ her for her trashy behavior by helping her.  But that is not fair.  Almost all women were exposed to some kind of violence during the genocide and still are today.  In fact, please see this blog post from an American who was in Rwanda in 2012.   I am most interested in his anecdote:
 

The teachers were sharing stories about if/how they were hit as children. When Laura revealed that she was never hit by her parents, one of the male teachers asked jokingly (but not really) what she was going to do when her husband hit her. She replied, trying to make light of the matter, that she would hit him back. Her colleague’s response? “Oh. Then he will kill you.” This anecdote reveals a slightly exaggerated but not entirely far-fetched reflection of Rwandese society.

When I similarly had discussed domestic abuse in the staff room, teachers said it is not a problem.  If the man is being abusive toward his wife, the families of the couple will get together to discuss the problem.  Then when it is all resolve, the couple can live happily again.  I said that doesn’t sound like it would work very well and he asked me what I would do.  I said I would go to the police and divorce him.  He paused thoughtfully, shook his head in shock and said, “Now I know why the divorce rate is so high in America!”
 As a demonstration of how bad this can get, one of my friends is a doctor and he treated a woman who had been beaten by a machete (beaten to ensure she would get a lot of cuts and scars but not die).  He said that she had cheated on him, so he did not face any punishment.  When my roommate asked where she is now, the doctor said that she was back living with her husband.
 I don’t want to give Rwanda a bad name though. The government is working to combat this. Very hard.  Between the One Stop Centres, the Gender Based Violence Bill, and the GBV and Child Abuse Campaign currently happening. Hopefully, we can see major progress soon!
 I also want to point out that I have always felt safe here.  Random violence or assault is virtually unheard of.  Even in the squeeze buses with four people in a row meant for two, sandwiched between two men, I have never felt that I am going to be assaulted (completely different viewpoint in Egypt!).  I am confident walking alone, even at night, and often get on motorcycle taxis by myself except for the male driver.
 However, I feel I must share this hidden perspective because it is an undeniably central part of the culture.  This has simply made me more motivated to continue my important work of educating and empowering girls.  The less economically vulnerable they are, the less vulnerable they are to such abuses!