wfn.org | [ENS] Documentary highlights the leadership and progress of Rwandan

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@mail.epicom.org>]

Documentary highlights the leadership and progress of Rwandan women

by Daphne Mack

ENS 030205-1

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

[Episcopal News Service] Anglican women joined other participants in the
49th session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW)
gathered
at the United Nations Church Center for a screening of Ladies First, a
film
highlighting the new roles of Rwandan women in government, business,
education and reconciliation.

The 50-minute documentary profiled Rwandan women on the forefront of
change
and showcased the challenges facing them and their country as Rwanda
struggles to build a sustainable peace between the Hutus and Tutsis.

Rwanda is a tiny country of only 26,000 square kilometers (about the
size of
Maryland) with a pre-genocide population of seven million. In the late
1980s, its economy began to slide under the authoritarian politics of
President Juvenal Habyarimana.

Habyarimana vowed to create a policy of ethnic "balance" that would
allot
education and employment to Hutu (85% of the population) and Tutsi (15%
of
the population.) Extremist Hutu, opposed to this plan, formed the
Rwandese
Patriotic Front (RPF) and invaded, plunging the country into civil war
and a
vicious cycle of human rights abuse.

After a plane carrying Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryama, president of
Burundi, crashed in April 1994 killing both men, a wave of anarchy and
mass
killings followed slaughtering an estimated 800,000 people in just 100
days.

Those who fled to survive the massacre returned to Rwanda in late 1996
and
early 1997.

Viewers of Ladies First heard stories of hope from women who were the
lone
survivors in their families, alienated by the families of their
common-law
husbands, and now are property owners. Ladies First told the story of
how
Rwandan women, who before did not have the right to vote, much less run
for
political office, now make up 48% of the country's Parliament.

Colette Kunkel, of Wide Angle, the films producer, said that one of the
things that "stood out" for in this film was that it was a "grassroots
effort." She said that the leadership roles that women had in Parliament
began when they started taking leadership roles in their homes.

She was also asked about the roles of women in the church. "It is the
church
mothers who are doing the work of reconciliation," she said. "They are
in
the prisons having Hutus apologize to Tutsis and vice versa."

"I think this film will help women get representation at the church's
table," Archdeacon Taimalelagi Fagamalama Tuatagaloa-Matalavea, Anglican
Observer at the United Nations, said.

The event was sponsored by the Anglican Consultative Council and
Episcopal
Women in Mission and Ministry, USA and was moderated by Dr. Pauline
Muchina
of Population Services International.

To obtain a copy of Ladies First visit	http://www.wideangle.org/

---Daphne Mack is staff writer for Episcopal News Service.

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