Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Promise and the Reality: Women's Rights in Rwanda

The Promise and the Reality: Women's Rights in Rwanda PAMELA ABBOTT and DIXON MALUNDA I. INTRODUCTION Rwanda is probably best known for two things: the 1994 genocide when the world stood by while upward of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed, and being the first country in the word to achieve the target of 50 per cent of parliamentarians being women. The latter is indicative of the stated commitment of the government to gender equality, the empowerment of women and promoting the rights of women. However, it is not evident that the policies have as yet had a significant impact on the lives of the majority of Rwandan women. The authors of the UNDP 2007 country report, 1 for example, conclude that the achievements of political representation have not translated into significant differences for the majority of women. Even young educated women are able to exert only very limited control over their own lives.2 Three recent journal articles, all written by authors with significant experience of carrying out research on the situation of women in Rwanda, have rather different perspectives on their situation but come to much the same conclusion: the majority of women have benefited little from government policies to promote gender equality and empower http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png African Journal of International and Comparative Law Edinburgh University Press

The Promise and the Reality: Women's Rights in Rwanda

Download PDF
21 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/edinburgh-university-press/the-promise-and-the-reality-women-s-rights-in-rwanda-k1mgbVbl0a
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2016
Subject
Articles; African Studies
ISSN
0954-8890
eISSN
1755-1609
DOI
10.3366/ajicl.2016.0173
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PAMELA ABBOTT and DIXON MALUNDA I. INTRODUCTION Rwanda is probably best known for two things: the 1994 genocide when the world stood by while upward of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed, and being the first country in the word to achieve the target of 50 per cent of parliamentarians being women. The latter is indicative of the stated commitment of the government to gender equality, the empowerment of women and promoting the rights of women. However, it is not evident that the policies have as yet had a significant impact on the lives of the majority of Rwandan women. The authors of the UNDP 2007 country report, 1 for example, conclude that the achievements of political representation have not translated into significant differences for the majority of women. Even young educated women are able to exert only very limited control over their own lives.2 Three recent journal articles, all written by authors with significant experience of carrying out research on the situation of women in Rwanda, have rather different perspectives on their situation but come to much the same conclusion: the majority of women have benefited little from government policies to promote gender equality and empower

Journal

African Journal of International and Comparative Law – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2016

There are no references for this article.