Melissa Vogt

Chapter 4 in P.I. Iribe Mwangi, J.B. Ndohvu, Njeri Muhoro and Mumia G. Osaaji (eds), Poverty as a Human Rights Violation? Report of a symposium held at Lake Naivasha Country Club, 28-30 September 2011, University of Nairobi, Center for Human Rights and Peace, Nairobi. This paper elaborates the complexities of poverty and gender, addressing gendered aspects of experiences, opportunities and constraints on human rights and rights-based approaches to poverty eradication in Rwanda, after the influence of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The genocide against the Tutsi is to this day remembered around the world and in Rwanda and it is a firm intention of the government that it never happen again. The scale and duration of the genocide was intense (Mahwa, 2010) and the method of killing strategic, brutal and intricate. Within 3 months 800,000 Tutsi were killed as a result of an ethnic rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi, where the Hutu were insistent on maintaining political power in the country. The origins of the ethnic rivalry have been attributed to colonial legacy and influence; the resulting extreme of violence and death to strategic planning (Hirschauer, 2011), the societal and cultural make-up of the country and a lack of intervention from the international community at the onset of the violence. Before 2000/2001, the analysis of poverty focused primarily on income deprivation. After that date, the work of Nobel Prize winner and economist Amartya Sen (1999) influenced the acknowledgement of poverty that included capabilities, freedom and rights as a concept for international understanding. This consideration of poverty as multidimensional was elaborated in reports of both the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank at that time (ODI, 2001). Sen's approach expanded the paradigm of poverty to also embrace issues such as vulnerabilities, lack of voice, power, and representation. As the definition of poverty expanded past that of economics, it moved closer to being synonymous with, and an issue of, human rights. The paper demonstrates how marginalisation leads to poverty, that poverty itself leads to lack of opportunities to get out of poverty, and that each of the factors that can lead to development, health, education and work, are curtailed by poverty. A rights-based approach to situations normally categorised as economic poverty is traditionally seen as a top down approach, influencing policy but perhaps not practice or people's actual capabilities to achieve poverty reduction or address human rights abuses (Holcombe, 2008). With the expanded concept of poverty, a rights-based approach calls for a combination of socially inclusive, rights-based and poverty sensitive policies.

Conflict surrounds us in the modern world, from local skirmishes to widespread war, from political to religious causes, from nation to nation, to localised territorial disputes. Women leaders need to spearhead peace and conflict issues within their respective continents and countries. This paper considers how women with a commitment and determination in Rwanda and around the world bring peace out of war and turn despair into love. We consider two main mechanisms for the improvement of women's societal status in a post-conflict environment: women in decision-making bodies, and the influence of external factors, specifically the United Nations Security Resolution 1325.

This Occasional Research Paper will discuss gendered post-conflict tensions in Rwanda. The Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi is considered unique in its scale, duration and level of cruelty, and holds a prominent place in the consciousness of all Rwandans, as do the desire and motivation to move forward. The genocide was a gendered sequence of events, which eventually resulted in a reconceptualisation of women’s roles in the household, community, at work and in leadership positions, as women were left making up 75 percent of the population immediately after the conflict. Highlighting women’s pre-colonial roles as behind-the-scenes advisors was an effective strategy for women parliamentarians to advocate gender equality in the present day. Not only have women in Parliament taken leadership in promoting laws that protect women, but civil society organisations have also participated in rebuilding and unifying the country in ways that advocate for women. Given that a politics of division was part of the failure of the previous government, Rwandan women leaders are committed to social transformation in full partnership with men, using a gender-mainstreaming approach. Although women have demonstrated not only political will but also economic success, poverty remains a challenge, as do gender-based violence, ignorance of legal rights, limited access to legal services and continuing disparity in higher education. As in most of the world, women’s visibility in national government has not immediately translated into empowerment in the home, in agriculture, in the office, in the academic world or in social life; patriarchal ideology still determines the household division of labour and the allocation of resources. Rwandan women’s achievements in shaping a gender sensitive political environment, however, should not be diminished.