ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the issues and choices that appear when tracing women's rights in Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide. It offers an introduction to Rwanda and international women's rights instruments. The chapter uses lite interviews, supplemented by participant observation and document analysis, to gather first-hand experiences from and appraisals of participants in Rwandan politics next to material about the processes at hand. It identifies which political processes were of particular relevance to women and where they had participated actively. However, it was based on women's steadfast marginalization before and during the genocide that Rwandan women sought active participation thereafter. The chapter presents empirical research in post-conflict contexts such as post-genocide Rwanda. Drawing on feminist perspectives of Rwandan politics, before and after the genocide, has not only permitted understanding women's plight during the genocide. It has enabled considering women's political involvement and their representational achievements in the periods spanning the pre- and post-genocide eras.
