Rwanda’s Living Legacy of Violence and Healing
Story and Photos by Jonathan Torgovnik *
A WORD FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHER
April 7, 2009, marked the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. On this date in 1994, Rwandan Armed Forces and Hutu militia began one of the most intensive killing campaigns in human history with the mass slaughter of more than 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus. First forced to witness the annihilation of their families, many women were then subjected to unconscionable forms of sexual violence – gang rape, rape with sharpened objects, sexual mutilation. In the aftermath of the destruction, many female survivors learned that they had been impregnated by their captors, contracted HIV/AIDS, or both.
I first traveled to Rwanda in February 2006 on assignment for Newsweek magazine with then-health editor, Geoffrey Cowley, to work on a story about HIV/AIDS on the 25th anniversary of the disease’s identification. It was then that I met Odette, a woman who had been brutally raped multiple times during the genocide. She described how her entire family had been killed and recounted the abuse she experienced, in detail. The ordeal resulted in a pregnancy – a baby boy – and HIV/AIDS. It was the most powerful and saddest interview I had ever witnessed. Odette’s horrific story led me to return to Rwanda to document her story and those of others like her.
Local nongovernmental organizations estimate 20,000 children were born from rapes committed during the genocide. Over the last three years, I returned to Rwanda several times, uncovering more details of the heinous crimes committed against the mothers of these children. The photographs and stories I collected comprise the book and exhibition, Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape.
