The Justice

Click the icon to view the arts page on the exhibit "Intended Consequences" in pdf format (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

"Today I have a big challenge: I am a mother but feel unwilling to be a mother. Whenever I look at this child, the memories of rape return. … I don't love her like a mother ought to love a child." This quote was taken from the testimony of Philomena, a Tutsi woman who was raped by Hutu militiamen during the Rwandan genocide and who conceived a child as a result. The Rwandan genocide is one of the most brutal acts of violence to occur in this century and left over 800,000 dead. But what happened to those who survived? This is the question addressed by the exhibit currently on display in the Kniznick Gallery.

On Monday, Feb. 23 the Women's Studies Research Center hosted the opening reception for this show, titled "Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape." The exhibition is comprised of interviews and photographs taken by Jonathan Torgovnik, an Israeli currently living in New York. Torgovnik is a photojournalist who makes his living reporting for magazines and who first became aware of the issue of Rwandan children born of rape while in Africa on assignment. He then set about collecting testimonies over the course of three years and multiple trips to Rwanda.

The Rwandan genocide began April 7, 1994 and lasted 100 days. During this time, about 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered. The conflict was between the Hutus and the Tutsis, two ethnic groups in Rwanda, and involved the use of rape as a weapon of war by Hutu militiamen. Around 20,000 children were born as a result of these rapes. Many of the women contracted HIV as well, adding to their suffering.

The show is a traveling exhibit and will go on a 10-college tour, with Brandeis as its first stop. Margot Moinester '09 and Noam Schuster '11 are the students responsible for bringing this exhibit to campus. Moinester has visited Rwanda twice, first on a grant from the Ethics Center and second on a separate grant. Schuster will be visiting Rwanda for the first time this summer, also as a part of a program by the Ethics Center.

The exhibit chronicles the lives of 25 Tutsi women and their children, who were conceived when the women were raped. Some women even have two children as a result of repeated rape. In their testimonies the women express emotions ranging from numbness to anger to hope. Some, like Philomena, have trouble loving their children. Others say that their children are the only hope in their lives. All of the women live in abject poverty. Their stories, told in a straightforward manner, are horrifying, their photographs chilling.

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