Gender, Agency, and Justice in Rwanda's Gacaca Trials

Introduction

The 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda claimed over 800,000 lives in a mere 100 days. How does a nation, shattered by such widespread atrocity, begin to rebuild its social fabric and seek justice for nearly two million implicated perpetrators? To tackle the backlog of cases and promote reconciliation and transitional justice, Rwanda implemented Gacaca tribunals at a grassroot level across the country, based on a historical judicial model used in the country. While it aimed to center on confession-forgiveness based models of justice, the judges (civilians elected by their community, typically elders) were allowed to use (and frequently resorted to) punitive law. The courts categorised crimes into three levels: Category 1 for planners and orchestrators, including those who committed rape and sexual torture; Category 2 for direct perpetrators of homicide; and Category 3 for lower level (typically property) offenses.

Academic discourse surrounding women in this conflict often presents a narrow view, and does not adequately touch on their experiences in post-genocide justice. This paper employs Georgina Holmes’ “Victimology” theory as a framework for unpacking how women were viewed in Gacaca trials, ultimately arguing that women on trial were cognisant of the fact that their society perceived them as helpless, and utilised these narratives to defend themselves for crimes as grave as murder. This paper contends that this “Victimology” framework, whether externally imposed or internally adopted, indeed constrained the agency of both Tutsi and Hutu women, albeit in different ways.

My central thesis argues that male and female perpetrators were viewed and charged differently for comparable crimes due to the influence of their gender and its perceived roles in relation to the atrocities. While many scholars acknowledge the existence of a reductionist, victimising approach to women in post-conflict justice, few have explored the possibility that women actively benefit from, and even intentionally appropriate, these reductionist narratives that cast them as solely passive and helpless. This paper will demonstrate that an intentional manipulation of gendered roles was a strategic defense in Gacaca trials.

PART ONE: Data analysis and interpretation

Quantitative Data on Convictions

While the dominant narrative surrounding the Tutsi Genocide portrays women exclusively as victims of the atrocities - both Tutsi (and moderate Hutu) women, on account of their ethnicity, and Hutu women, as helpless bystanders at best or unwilling accomplices of male Hutu counterparts - there is a growing recognition within scholarly circles that women willingly partook in (even systematically orchestrated¹) the perpetration of genocidal violenc². Women committed crimes of varying severity, from looting to betraying the hiding places of Tutsis, to participating in violence through facilitating sexual slavery or even instigating murder³. In terms of the sheer number of individuals tried by the Gacaca courts, women constituted a significant minority. The exact number of Gacaca trials is unclear, Researcher Beth Brewer writes that out of the total of 1,003,227 individuals tried, only around 96,653, or 9.6%, were women⁴. Furthermore, research by Nyseth Nzitatira et al. indicates that there were over 10,000 trials concerning women who had committed “violent” (ie. Category 1 and 2) offenses during the genocide⁵. This study also notes that a considerably larger number of women were involved in property crimes, primarily looting the homes and belongings of victims. While women represented a smaller proportion of the total defendants, there is undeniably a substantial number of women involved in all categories of crimes, which clearly shows a need for more focused analyses on their treatment in research on Gacaca courts.

However, Quantitative data on the fines given to men versus women convicted of Category 3 crimes (primarily property offenses) is a notable insight into gender-based sentencing. Hollie Nyseth Brehm et al.’s study “Genocide, Justice, and Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts” found that found that a higher percentage of men received fines compared to women. Moreover, the median fine for men was about 7,480 RWF, while for women it was about 5,000 RWF. A lower median fine for female perpetrators of Category 3 crimes could possibly indicate a perception that their involvement in such crimes was less significant, or aggressive, or perhaps that they had a lower capacity to pay higher fines, but I argue that for crimes of a comparable nature, the differences in fines between men and women is noteworthy - it is entirely unlikely that every woman in this dataset who committed a Category 3 act did so in a less aggressive or devastating manner than a man with comparable crime accusations. Yet, this is what a first glance at the unbalanced ratio would imply. This aligns with my paper’s “Victimology” hypothesis, albeit in the limited context of non-violent crimes, but it is crucial to note that data from the same study notes identical median lengths of prison sentences for both men and women (15 years) concerning Category 1 and 2 (ie. violent) crimes. Furthermore, community service was given as part of the sentence in a similar percentage of cases for both genders in these categories. This data thus suggests a degree of parity in the judicial treatment of these violent offenses, which is important counterevidence to this paper’s hypothesis of more lenient sentencing for women in serious crimes.

Interestingly, a significant gender disparity emerges from this data in the imposition of life sentences, as men were considerably more likely to receive life sentences for both Category 1 and 2 crimes. Specifically, 17% of men convicted of Category 1 crimes received life sentences, compared to only 7% of women in this group. Of note, also, is that Brehm et al. found that of all available records on life sentences from Gacaca trials, a staggering 98% were given to men. This is a significantly higher rate for men, and in the most severe punishment group - a disparity here further supports the hypothesis, as this is an indication that men were perceived as having played more central and heinous roles in the atrocities of the genocide.

Table 1. Compilation of statistics referenced for comparison.

Overall, concerning the quantitative data referenced, the equal median prison sentences for men and women in Categories 1 and 2 do not support a general trend of leniency for female perpetrators, however, the significantly lower median fine for women in Category 3 crimes does suggest a degree of leniency in this specific context. Furthermore, while the considerably lower percentage of women receiving life sentences for Category 1 crimes may seemingly contradict the argument that women were treated more leniently for graver offenses, it is countered by a consideration that the overall ratio of life imprisonment sentences allotted to male versus female perpetrators of genocide crimes was 98:2. This, I reiterate, is an undeniable signifier of a gendered justice process.

It is also important to consider alternative explanations for the observed sentencing patterns. Differences in the specific nature and severity of the crimes committed by men and women within each category could account, to some extent, for some of these disparities. Variations in confession rates and the timings of confessions, as well as the nature of any witness testimonies may have also influenced the sentencing in these courts. As detailed case-level data that links specific crimes, sentences, and the gender of the accuser, is scarce due to limited recordings of cases, it is challenging to definitively attribute the observed sentencing patterns solely to my “Victimology” hypothesis, but the qualitative evidence included in this data analysis clearly displays the influence of gender on trial sentencing, through observations of trials where female defendants successfully employed gendered narratives in their testimonies.

Qualitative Data on Perpetrators’ Experiences and Perspectives

Quantitative data specifically concerning the demographics of Gacaca defendants is scarce, as is qualitative research specifically concerning primary source perspectives on the agency, testimonies, and overall experiences of female defendants in Gacaca. This is likely because the cases were not mandatorily recorded. However, Brewer accessed and reviewed records of 91 accused women on trial between 2005 and 2009, as provided to her personally by Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), and I will discuss the cases of defendants Pauline, Virginie, and Agnès⁶, who successfully employed Victimology-based narratives in their defense, all emphasizing their roles as mothers and perceived subservience to men.

A common defense strategy from Brewer’s reports is the argument that women could not have attacked or killed anyone because they were mothers. For instance, Virginie was accused of beating and torturing her Tutsi son-in-law. In her testimony to the Gacaca courts, she argued that she could not have harmed this man by virtue of him being her son-in-law⁷. Similarly, Pauline was tried for abandoning her children to attackers, and pleaded not guilty by questioning how a mother could ever desire the death of her own children. The sole argument in both of these women's defense was their connection to motherhood, appealing to the societal notion that motherhood is inherently incompatible with violence. This is a curious standpoint to take, as it would not have held up in any of the federal or UN-operated tribunals - there is an unconventionality to a type of defense that excludes any mentions of an alibi, or engagement with any of the evidence presented (presumably, there was no evidence presented to the court, as a majority of Gacaca cases were based around oral accusations and testimonies), but instead rejects the possibility of committing the crime in the first place because of essentialist characteristics present within women that would make it entirely inconceivable for them to commit torture or murder. One must question if fathers would have been able to use this same line of reasoning to exempt themselves, especially in cases parallel to Pauline’s, where she was not even accused of directly attacking her children. I have been unable to find mentions of fatherhood as a defense against murder in the Gacaca courts. Thus, this argument is not parenthood-based, but rather grounded in the defendants’ respective statuses as women. One can thus pull from the defense “I could not have committed this violent act because I am a mother” the inferred “I could not have committed this violent act because I am a woman”. Ultimately, both of these women were acquitted after invoking motherhood as the primary tenet of their defenses⁸.

Alongside the role of motherhood, constructs like the societal assumption of female subservience to male heads of households were used by women to deny their own agency in violence they were accused of perpetrating. The line of reasoning in such arguments is that these women lacked authority over events within their homes, and were therefore not responsible for the crimes committed within them. For example, Brewer cites the case of Agnès, who appealed her conviction for refusing to testify and intimidating witnesses. She argued that she could not have committed any genocide crimes because her husband, as the head of the household, was not present to authorise or facilitate Agnès’ involvement in crime. Interestingly, this defense was supported by a witness, and Agnès was subsequently acquitted⁹. Similarly to Pauline and Virginie, Agnès’ defense was that it was impossible for her to partake in genocidal crimes because of her womanhood, but Agnès’ particular gender narrative diverges from the former two defendants, as it rests not on essentialism, but on inviolable social norms prescribed to Rwandese women - thus it is a more constructivist approach to gender, but still employed in the same way (ie. “My constraints as the woman of the household in this society prevents me from asserting agency, thus I could not have committed this violent act”), and to the same effect (acquittal).

PART TWO: Theoretical engagements

The insights from the data analysis in Part One, especially the qualitative aspect, clearly displays a relationship between gender and Gacaca defenses and sentences. Thus, this section will engage these findings through Legal and Feminist theory, particularly focusing on Holmes’ lens of Victimology¹⁰, Oyěwùmí's construction of the African woman¹¹, the Hegelian Master-Slave Dialectic¹², Opongo’s counter-argument on equality in trials through an examination of “womanhood roles”¹³, and finally a consideration Engle’s discussion of the “Exotic Other”¹⁴ in the context of promoting female agency in post-tribunal reform.

The pervasive "Victimology" framework, which reduces African women in conflict to passive, silent figures devoid of agency, proves to be a critical analytical tool for understanding the Gacaca trials, despite the context in which Holmes discusses it (primarily concerning international media portrayal of Rwandese and Congolese women as helpless victims). As Holmes argues, this framework, though often unwittingly adopted, fails to capture the complex realities of women as "political actors" in their "manoeuvrings and performances"¹⁵. The qualitative data strongly supports this: the strategic deployment of motherhood by Virginie and Pauline, or the appeal to spousal subservience by Agnès, were not reflections of societal perception but intentional performances of womanhood designed to manipulate the judicial outcome. By leaning into the societal narrative that "ordinary Rwandan women are not capable of genocide violence," many women effectively turned a restrictive stereotype into a very effective defense mechanism. Moreover, the Gacaca courts, in accepting these defenses, inadvertently contributed to the state's construction of a "truth" that reinforced these gendered narratives, even when they contradicted the reality of women's diverse and multifaceted roles in the genocide.

While Holmes’ theory was constructed to fit the context of Global-Northern perceptions on Global-Southern women, Oyěwùmí's The Invention of Women may provide a bit of insight into how these gender roles became so deeply internalised into Rwandan society, beyond just external imposition. Oyěwùmí argues that gender is a social construct, and in many African societies, men have actively participated in shaping and perpetuating reductive gender roles to their own benefit within patriarchal structures. In the context of Gacaca, I contend that this suggests the "Victimology" framework was not simply a Western import influencing the Gacaca system, but a concept that resonated with and was re-appropriated within existing Rwandan patriarchal norms. The accused women, therefore, were not just reacting to an external gaze but strategically leveraging deeply ingrained societal expectations that had been, in part, "invented" and maintained by Rwandan men. The intentional reappropriation of victimology-based gendered stereotypes by women on trial in Gacaca therefore represents a sophisticated manipulation of the system that ultimately demonstrates their own agency.

This dynamic can be further illuminated through Hegel's Lord-Bondsman Dialectic. In this framework, the "Bondsman" (an accused woman) initially appears powerless, defined by the "Lord" (traditionally male-dominated society). However, through their labor and self-consciousness, the bondsman gains a deeper understanding of the lord's world and, crucially, of the lord’s dependence on the bondsman. Eventually, the bondsman comes to realise that they understand both their own situation and perspective, and the lord’s situation and perspective, thus granting them a subversive power over the lord through their knowledge. In the Gacaca context, the accused women, by consciously performing the expected subservient "victim" role, demonstrate a profound understanding of the court's (and society's) internalised, preconceived notions of female culpability. Their "labor", here, is the delivery of these gendered narratives. By successfully manipulating these expectations, they subtly reassert power, turning a perceived weakness (their gendered identity) into a tool for acquittal or reduced sentencing. They gain a form of mastery over the judicial outcome by exploiting the very biases that initially sought to define them.

One cannot conclude, however, that if women were falsely overarchingly “victimised” by internal and external forces that they are somehow antagonists, and must therefore be treated with additional aggression. Opongo’s piece, “Gendering Transitional Justice Processes in Africa: A Feminist Advocacy” argues that the inherent differences in the nature and ideology of gender-based violence in the genocide mean that women cannot always be tried as “equals” to men, as their experiences of perpetration are very likely shaped by coercion of unique vulnerabilities by virtue of their subjugation in a patriarchal society. This perspective challenges my reflections on the use of “subservience” as a defense against admission of active participation in the genocide. It is a nuanced consideration, and beyond the scope of this paper to determine the extent to which women in a patriarchal society have agency over the genocide crimes they partook in - especially when a majority of génocidaires were men - thus, it is possible that many of these “subservience”-based defenses were legitimate, instead of intentionally crafted performances. While some women may have strategically used gendered defenses, others might have genuinely been coerced into participation, and the Gacaca system, with its focus on "truth-telling" and community participation, may have failed to adequately account for these nuances.

Finally, Engle cautions against radical, externally imposed reforms that "Otherise" communities by reducing complex cultural practices to solely "bad" phenomena, as seen in her analysis of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Instead, she advocates for a nuanced approach that acknowledges existing practices while focusing on actionable, consent-based legal and provisional changes that enhance safety and respect agency. Applying this to Gacaca, I argue it would be fundamentally wrong to conclude that the entire judicial process was "tainted" simply due to the identified gender disparities and influences. The Gacaca tribunals were a necessary and monumental undertaking for post-genocide Rwanda, processing nearly two million cases and significantly contributing to justice and reconciliation where conventional courts would have taken centuries. To dismiss the entire system would be to "Otherise" Rwanda's unique, community-based solution to an unprecedented crisis. Instead, aligning with Engle's perspective, my focus remains on acknowledging the shortcomings in the trial process - the gendered influences from both defendants and judges, the disparities in sentencing for certain crimes, and such - without undermining the overall necessity and achievements of Gacaca.

Therefore, forward-seeking actionable responses to gender disparities in this tribunal (which notably closed down over a decade ago) should not aim to dismantle these forms of justice mechanisms, but rather to identify specific areas where gender biases manifested most significantly, and acknowledge them. Moreover, proposing culturally sensitive legal and social reforms may enhance fairness and respect for women’s agency in future national judicial workings. The takeaways from the Gacaca tribunals could also be applied to tribunals for ongoing genocides around the world where gendered considerations have been deprioritised.

CONCLUSION

This paper aimed to dissect gendered dynamics of justice within Rwanda’s Gacaca tribunals, asking whether female perpetrators received more lenient treatment and if they intentionally leveraged perceptions of “victimhood” placed upon them. Quantitatively, while median prison sentences for the most heinous Category 1 and 2 crimes showed a surprising parity between men and women (15 years each), a striking disparity emerged in the gravest punishments. Men were significantly more likely to receive life sentences for Category 1 crimes (17% vs. 7% for women), and a staggering 98% of all life sentences handed down by Gacaca courts were given to men. Conversely, women received notably lower median fines for Category 3 property crimes. Does this not clearly display a gendered justice process, where the gravest punishments were disproportionately reserved for men, while women might have faced a degree of leniency in less violent offenses? The qualitative data, however, presents a strong counter to notions of an inherent leniency. My analysis of court reports clearly reveals accused women strategically deploying gendered defenses to secure acquittals in their cases. This, I conclude, was a manipulation of the victimology framework, even if the extent of intentionality in this subversion can’t be determined. To reiterate Opongo and Engle’s arguments, not all notions of “subservience” were strategic, and to reduce all mentions of “coercion” or “motherhood” to manipulation against a faulty and patriarchal system would be a grave inaccuracy and an “Otherising” of both Rwandan women and the Gacaca tribunals.

How, thus, can future transitional justice mechanisms, in Rwanda or in ongoing conflicts globally, better account for the nuanced roles of women as both victims and perpetrators, ensuring that their agency is respected and enshrined, while also addressing and properly mitigating inherent gender biases in the pursuit of truer justice? This remains a critical consideration for the future of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Bibliography

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• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. “The Phenomenology of Spirit”, 1807.
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