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Kimberlee Acquaro is a photojournalist and writer ...
Liberata is dying of AIDS contracted when she was raped during the genocide. She survived with her daughter Joseline, but the rest of her family, including some of her children, were killed. Liberata misses the children she lost and often cares for a neighbor's young boy. She told me it helps her deal with her grief.

Butare, Rwanda 2002

Liberata is dying of AIDS contracted when she was raped during the genocide. She survived with her daughter Joseline, but the rest of her family, including some of her children, were killed. Liberata misses the children she lost and often cares for a neighbor's young boy. She told me it helps her deal with her grief.

In 2001, photojournalist Kimberlee Acquaro traveled to Rwanda, meeting and photographing women who survived the genocide. In her words:

"From April to July 1994, Rwanda's extremist Hutu government waged a systematic campaign of propaganda and terror that turned the country's Hutu majority against its Tutsi minority. The violence culminated in one of the worst crimes ever witnessed by humanity: the Rwandan genocide. Three of every four Tutsis in Rwanda were massacred. In all, as many as 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus lost their lives in 100 days.

The majority of the survivors were women, many who had been brutally raped, a key element of the genocidal strategy. Many rape victims were infected with HIV and are now dying of AIDS. Others survived to find themselves pregnant from the rapes.

By some estimates, the genocide left the country 70 percent female and handed Rwanda's women both an extraordinary burden and an unprecedented opportunity. Stepping into roles historically held by men yet blocked by deeply rooted attitudes and customs, these women have made remarkable progress. Many are becoming business owners and heads of households, mayors, legislators, and ministers of state.

The movement is not just political but also deeply personal. Working to rebuild their lives, these women are accomplishing the far larger goal of reconciling Rwandans after the genocide. Women who lost everything are mending their own souls by attending to the suffering of others. And their personal reconciliation has national consequences. Woman by woman they are rebuilding their war-ravaged nation and redefining their role in Rwandan society."

Ms. Acquaro and her Rwandan colleague Norah Bagarinka spoke at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum about Rwandan women survivors on November 8, 2004. Read the transcript

Read more about these women in a Mother Jones article she co-authored with Peter Landesman, "Out of Madness, A Matriarchy."

"God Sleeps in Rwanda," a documentary film by Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacey Sherman about Rwandan women survivors, was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award. Learn more about the film

Ms. Acquaro's work was made possible by the Pew International Journalism Fellowship Program.

Listen to an interview about this project with Kimberlee Acquaro from the Kojo Nnamdi show, WAMU 88.5 FM

Listen to an interview about this project with Kimberlee Acquaro from The Tavis Smiley show.

Listen to an interview about this project with Kimberlee Acquaro from Public Radio International's The World, recorded with host Lisa Mullins.