Reviews for The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence

The average rating for The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-06-23 00:00:00 William Austin "This is not rape out of control. It is rape under control. It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others; rape as spectacle. It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. It is rape as genocide" - Catherine A. Mackinnon "Rape, Genocide, and Women's Human Rights" as quoted by de Brouwer et al. I picked this book up because I was, frankly, a little disgusted by the neglect of sexual violence survivors' narratives in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with our Families. He made one vague reference to sexual torture, and then moved on to his mostly phallocentric accounts of the genocide. I felt he had ignored a large number of victims, had missed the opportunity to tell their stories. That is why I approached this book, to hear the testimonials of victims of sexual violence, to facilitate their bearing witness to gender based violence. To listen when they speak. The Men Who Killed Me: Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence is harrowing. It speaks through testimonies of sixteen women and one man (I am so grateful(?) they acknowledged male victims of sexual violence) who all survived sexual violence during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. They reveal their drastically different and yet tragically similar experiences. For instance, the overwhelming majority state that they no longer felt fear, sadness, pain after being repeatedly raped, that they were numb and apathetic to the world. They felt they were already dead, they had already been killed (these are the men who killed me, one woman states). They felt they were no longer human after being raped, that they were less than a human being, dirty, sullied, animal. They faced mantras of Hutu rhetoric before, during, and after their rapes; "I want to see what a Tutsi woman tastes like," "I want to humiliate you before I kill you," you Tutsi women are always so proud, looking down on us Hutu men. Now we can have you whenever we want," and "your days are numbered." The victims were, and are, ostracized post-genocide for their HIV-positive diagnoses, mostly originating from their rapists and often spreading to their spouses and children inadvertently. They are raising their broken, blended families as single mothers/sisters/cousins/caregivers despite debilitating fatigue and stigmas. Rwanda's population was 70% female post-genocide (1994), the workforce 55% female, Parliament made up of 56% women. And yet, rape and HIV-positive stigmas remain crippling for these victims. Poverty reduces these survivors' access to proper nutrition, housing, medical and psychological therapy, and of course, retroviral medication to stave off AIDS. Survivors who bear witness in gacaca courts (community run) see their rapists released after little to no jail time; their families' murderers live next door to them. Some sexual violence survivors who speak out against perpetrators are robbed, beaten, or murdered. Women are the new face of Rwanda, and many of these women are survivors of sexual violence. This book deals with the nitty-gritty legal details of the gacaca system, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the statistics that make up the 'fact' of sexual violence as a tool of genocide. This is all vitally important to understand the framework of post genocide Rwanda and its attempts at reparations and reconciliation. However, the testimonials included in Part Two speak volumes more than the stats and legal jargon. The portraits are haunting, eyes stare out at the reader, accusatory, damaged, angry, fierce. The faces of fighters, of survivors. The accompanying testimonies blur together until you feel sick. You forget which woman lived where, how many men raped her, how many children she has, how many family members she lost. That compulsion that the brain has to combine every narrative read into one concept of experience does the victims no justice. Removing the face and the name from the experience, from their unique moments of reliving their trauma, their catharsis, compartmentalizes the traumatic images and words in ways the victims cannot, escaping the reality of the Rwandan Genocide. The Men Who Killed Me gives each victim an opportunity to cleanse themselves of their story, their pain, their repressed emotion, to bear witness to the horror they survived. Is their audience ready to listen?

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-31 00:00:00 Daniel Sigetti I read this book for my Around the World in 50 Books Challenge. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. It will disturb you. If it doesn't disturb you than you're really messed up. Seriously. That's just how I see it whether you agree or not. "Whether I'm in the fields, or at home, or at the market, I will never get the smell of semen out of my nostrils." that is a quote from one of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. She was chained to a bed and raped repeatedly for 3 months. This woman among 2 others are the reason that this book was even written. For me that sentence is the most powerful sentence I have ever read in a book. When I read it for the first time it evoked several feelings in me. The first was disgust, then came anger and then an overwhelming feeling of sorrow. I read that quote several times and each time my feelings intensified. I knew no matter how disturbed I would be that I had to continue reading the book. If I didn't I felt as though I would be letting the survivors down. The book opens with a brief overview of the cause of the genocide followed by information on sexual violence rape reports by country and era(I think). I found both of these features to be helpful as they gave both background information as well as information on other countries that I did not know about. Inside there are the horrific accounts of 17 survivors of the "African Holocaust" .16 women and 1 young man were brave enough to share their stories with the world in the hope that they will bring attention to the plight of the people of Rwanda. To me it seemed as though each account of sexual violence became more and more extreme as the book went on. There were stories from women who were still little girls at the time the genocide occurred many of them if not all ended up contracting HIV from their rapists. Each account broke my heart. I wanted to reach through the pages of the book to hug these survivors, to show them that someone cares, that someone has them in their heart. The violence that these people suffered is incomprehensible. 800,000 people were murdered in 90 days of fighting while the international community did nothing. That is what made me the angriest I think. Knowing that nothing was being done to help end the genocide that wiped almost one million people off the face of the earth. Men, women, and children were butchered regardless of age or status. The young and the old were treated like "cockroaches" as the Hutu fighters called them. It's unfathomable to me that this was allowed to happen. When the genocide was happening I just turned 4. I was celebrating my fourth birthday while other children younger than I were being hacked to death in an effort to wipe out the future generation of Tutsi people. that really put the accounts into perspective to me. It made me think...what right to a childhood did I have one so many others were cut short? What right to complain did I have one other children were being abused and murdered? The answer...is none. I don't have that right. That's the way I see it you don't have to agree but that is my opinion and this is my blog. As disturbing as the book is, the people who told their stories still manage for the most part to keep holding on to one thing. Hope. How inspiring is that? After everything that happened to them they still manage to hope for something better and they do not give up. Far from it these people are still fighting. They're fighting for survival for themselves and their families while living in poverty. These people are true heros, true survivors and they deserve more than what they are getting in life. Many of the women have to live in the same communities as the men who attacked and raped them, killed their families or raped their family members. For them their nightmares will never end as long as the current legal system in Rwanda stays the same. Bribery is common place and often the sentences for the criminals do not fit the crimes. sometimes the victims are bought off and sometimes so are the judges. Very little is being done for the Rwandan people by the international community that stood by and let the slaughter...there is no other word for what happened during those 90 days it was a slaughter. It sickens me. While the subject matter was difficult to read I highly recommend it to all. These stories must be read. To not do so is the equivalent to sweeping these people under the proverbial rug. The people who wrote the stories down for the victims did so in such a way that they were not offensive. I applaud the survivors of the genocide and I hope that things get better for the people there but I know this will only happen if people, every day regular run of the mill average people do something to help. I urge you to research charities (make sure they are reputable) and donate your time, money, possessions where and when you can. Please read this book and educate yourselves so that we can avoid things like this from happening in the future. This is by far the most powerful book I have ever read and now I'm reading other books to educate myself further on this topic. I hope I encouraged someone else to read this book. It's worth it. Trust me it will make you value things a lot more.