背負(fù)著盧旺達(dá)未來的女人們

今年4月7日，是盧旺達(dá)種族大屠殺第15個(gè)紀(jì)念日。盧旺達(dá)，這個(gè)“千丘之國”，本來國小名微，然而15年前，就是在這個(gè)非洲小國，80萬生命在一百天之內(nèi)消隕于屠刀和槍彈之下。這是20世紀(jì)的一大慘劇，人類歷史上難以言說的痛。

然而，歷史無法重來，對(duì)于幸存者來說，未來才是可以把握的。在經(jīng)歷這場浩劫后，這個(gè)國家的男性大多在戰(zhàn)亂和屠殺中喪生，未來的重?fù)?dān)落在了那些無辜而脆弱的婦孺身上。于是，我們看到，滿身傷痕的盧旺達(dá)女人們勇敢地站了起來，在政壇和商界施展拳腳，用她們的堅(jiān)強(qiáng)重建家園，撫平昔日傷痛。也許，這條路注定是漫長而崎嶇的，但我們相信，她們會(huì)以無懼的決心走下去，去書寫屬于她們的歷史篇章。

——Terry

Judith Kanakuze pauses at the mention of her family. “God saved me，” she says. “He did not save them.” Fifteen years ago， 11，000 1)Tutsis were murdered in Kanakuze’s home province of 2)Kibuye， in the west of Rwanda， in the town’s Roman Catholic church. Almost everyone in her extended family had fled to the 3)chapel for 4)sanctuary. The next day another 10，000 people were murdered in the town stadium in a 5)pogrom led by Kibuye’s governor. Kanakuze does not want to say much more. The survivors of the 6)genocide often speak of the pain of being “condemned to live.” But she admits to an unexpected optimism as a member of the first parliament in the world to have a majority of female MPs. “This is a different time，” she says. “We are transforming our society， and women are part of the solution.”

In September of 2008， Rwanda’s parliamentary election saw women win 45 of the 80 seats. Nearly half were elected in women-only seats， with the rest 7)triumphing in 8)open ballots. The women MPs include former rebels and genocide survivors， war widows and peasant farmers， and although the election was a landmark， the women’s success was not unexpected. Under the requirements of a new constitution， women already held a third of cabinet posts. The heads of the supreme court and the police are also women， as are the majority of the country’s prison governors.

Before 1994， women held only around one in five parliamentary seats. The genocide changed

everything. When the killing ended there were twice as many women as men in Rwanda， and while the gap has since narrowed， more than a third of households are still headed by women. Women also make up 55% of the workforce and own about 40% of businesses.

Aloisea Inyumba is a Tutsi former rebel fighter， who has been part of the 9)Rwandan Patriotic Front-led (RPF) government since it overthrew the extremist Hutu regime in 1994—serving first as Minister for Women and the Family， before moving to the gender and social affairs 10)brief. She is now a senator in the upper house of parliament， and says that women began to 11)exert political muscle partly as a means of survival.

“After the genocide there were property disputes，” she says， “so we worked on a strong family bill. For the first time the women of this country were given rights to inherit.

Traditionally， if a woman married a man， the property belonged to him. If your husband died， the property would go to the 12)in-laws. This bill has become a legal protection for families.

Women can now inherit， women can own property. A girl child and a boy child have equal entitlement to inheritance.”

Another issue that women forced the government to 13)address is rape. Sexual attacks were an 14)integral part of the genocide， with local political leaders running what amounted to rape camps in some villages. The international 15)tribunal for Rwanda—which 16)tried some of the organisers and 17)perpetrators of the killings—defined rape as an act of genocide under international law， if part of a systematic move to wipe out an ethnic group. Yet when it came to Rwanda’s own law to punish genocide， rape was almost 18)relegated to a relatively minor offence. The draft genocide law split offences into four categories， with sentences of death or life imprisonment for murder. But rape was placed in the lowest category， alongside offences such as 19)looting， with the draft law requiring only a light prison sentence or community service. Groups such as the Widows of the Genocide and Ibuka， the survivors’ association， were outraged. Many Tutsi women who had been raped had been infected with HIV， while others bore the children of their attackers. “The women were not happy with that draft law，” says Inyumba， and so “we advocated for a change. We

regarded the genocide law as very important in ensuring that the issue of sexual abuse was taken seriously.”

This transformation seems all the more unlikely given that it was 20)engineered by what had been a male-dominated rebel group. But Inyumba says a focus on gender equality infused the RPF from the start because the party was focused on a broader rejection of discrimination of all kinds.

Men have， on the whole， remained silent on the new laws. But Evarist Kalish MP， a member of the Liberal party and the chair of parliament’s human rights committee， says that many men recognise that women may provide the best leadership.

“More than men， women are the victims of the war，” says Kalish. “They have different priorities to those of men. They have more concern about issues related to violence in general， and gender-based violence in particular. Women have faced discrimination so they want to put a stop to discrimination. All of this will contribute to preventing another genocide.”

Judith Kanakuze在講到她的家人時(shí)停頓了一下。“上天救活了我，”她說，“卻沒能救活我的家人。”15年前，在Kanakuze的家鄉(xiāng)——位于盧旺達(dá)西部的基布耶，1.1萬圖西人在一個(gè)天主教堂里被殺害。當(dāng)時(shí)，幾乎她所有的親人都逃到那個(gè)教堂以躲避殺身之禍，結(jié)果卻無一幸免。事件后的第二天，又有一萬圖西民眾在當(dāng)?shù)氐捏w育場上遇害，這次的種族大屠殺由基布耶當(dāng)權(quán)者發(fā)起。Kanakuze對(duì)此不想多說。種族屠殺的幸存者常常說他們背負(fù)著一種痛——“受著詛咒活下去”。 盧旺達(dá)議會(huì)是世界上首個(gè)女議員占多數(shù)的議會(huì)，作為其中一員，Kanakuze感到無比樂觀，這種樂觀是她不曾料到的。“這是個(gè)不同凡響的時(shí)代”，她說，“我們正在改造我們的社會(huì)，而女性是其中的一股推動(dòng)力。”

2008年9月，盧旺達(dá)的議會(huì)選舉結(jié)果顯示，80個(gè)席位中有45位由女性奪得。……