March 2, 2005
by Daphne Mack

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/.

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