Dauge-Roth Shares Film About Rwandan Women

In Rwanda, up to one million members of the native Tutsi tribe were killed between April 7, 1994 and July 15, 1994. Rwandans, especially the orphans and women, are still recovering from the genocide 22 years later. Although there is a long way to go before equality can be established, some Tutsi women who survived the genocide have found ways to improve their lives and make change through organizations that were formed to empower women.

Upper Claire Dauge-Roth presented her documentary entitled “The Women of Rwanda” on April 14 in the Forum. Last summer, she spent 10 days travelling in Rwanda meeting with different women to learn about personal experiences of the genocide, the effects it had on Tutsi women years afterwards and what their organizations were doing to combat the inequality of women’s rights in Rwanda. Gradually, she recorded 14 hours worth of content and condensed it into a 40-minute presentation, which many said delivered a powerful message. Dauge-Roth was originally connected to issues in Rwanda through her father, Alexandre Dauge-Roth, who founded a non-profit in Rwanda called Friends of Tubeho. “It was a thing I always grew up with, but I didn’t know much about the country,” Dauge-Roth said.

“I had some awareness of the Rwandan genocide, but Dauge-Roth’s documentary explored the effects of the genocide through the lens of women’s rights, which I had never considered.”

In the course of the presentation, Dauge-Roth delivered a brief background to her documentary and gave a few examples of how women in Rwanda were put at disadvantages in society that are difficult to combat. She addressed the issue caused by the stigma surrounding menstruation; 18 percent of girls miss an average of 50 days of school because they don’t have enough money to afford menstrual pads or are uneducated about their menstrual cycle. As a result, they fall behind their male classmates.

In the production stage, Dauge-Roth made the conscious decision to edit herself out of the film in order to feature the women and their personal stories. Each individual possessed different opinions on what the country is capable of doing in order to improve the lives of the victims of the genocide.

Dauge-Roth started all of her interviews with the same question: “Tell me anything about yourself that you want me to know.” She believed that all of the interviews were very personal.

“Often they would tell me their stories of the genocide and who they lost and where they were and how they survived,” she said.

One of the women Dauge-Roth spoke to was Elise Rida Musomandera, who started the Isano Women and Youth Empowerment (IWE) workshop. IWE gives women’s cooperatives and associations of orphans/widows the opportunity to produce necklaces, bracelets, earrings, baskets, bags and African carvings. 

Since her trip to Rwanda, Dauge-Roth has worked with Musomandera to help her receive a grant to pay for sewing machines and rent. Previously, Musomandera paid for the workshop with her own money, and when rent became too expensive, she had to move her shop.

However, she closed her shop because the new location was in a bad location, and she wasn’t selling enough products. She is now selling her products on Etsy because the products will sell for substantially higher prices in western markets than they would in Rwanda. Dauge-Roth introduced each organization she met and followed the screening with a question-and-answer session where she expanded on her personal experience while in Rwanda. One of the highlights of her visit was coincidentally meeting Jeannette Kagame, the First Lady of Rwanda. Kagame founded the Imbuto foundation, which is primarily focused on solving the HIV crisis after the massive number of rapes following the genocide.

Among students who attended the documentary, the production was very highly reviewed. Senior Michelle Bosché was in contact with Dauge-Roth, a good friend of hers, during her time in Rwanda. She watched half of the documentary in its beginning stages and wanted to see how it improved since. “It’s a very important issue, and I really wanted to see the effects in Rwanda of the genocide on women.” Bosché explained that it was particularly important in a time when “we’ve been talking a lot about sexual assault on campus recently” to think about its occurrence in other communities and contexts.

Upper Bella Weissman wanted to go see the documentary because she was intrigued by Dauge-Roth’s initial talk at the winter term Student Fellowship assembly. Weissman found one of the interviews especially revealing because the women spoke about how gender roles have evolved throughout history.

“It was really interesting because I learned about colonization in history so to hear the perspective from a Rwandan about how that altered the culture and more specifically the gender roles was really cool, and it brought my understanding of colonization of Africa to a new level,” she said.

Senior Pranay Vemulamada described Dauge-Roth’s documentary as “beautifully crafted.” He said that often, “documentaries like this fall short in portraying its subjects as poor people in need of saving,” Vemulamada said. However, he believed that Dauge-Roth showed the strength and independence of the women she interviewed.

Upper Abigail Africa appreciated the “transparency” in each interviewee’s response, which she credited to the quality of Dauge-Roth’s questions. She said that the film gave insight to the problems in Rwanda about women and the lack of knowledge surrounding pregnancy and periods.

“I cannot imagine not understanding [menstruation]. Being able to understand that difference and now being motivated to care about it and see what somebody can do about it is interesting,” Africa said.

Senior Moonlan Zhang said she was familiar with the Rwandan genocide, having taken a class on genocide more broadly, but found it enlightening to view the events from a new perspective.

“I had some awareness of the Rwandan genocide, but [Dauge-Roth’s] documentary explored the effects of the genocide through the lens of women’s rights, which I had never considered.”

Similarly, senior Sean Taylor said that he had no idea that there was an issue in Rwanda with menstruation and women’s health.

“She brings up a lot of interesting questions that people don’t usually ask regarding the [Rwandan] genocide,” he said. “It’s not often on people’s minds—people should definitely look more into the Rwandan genocide and the effects it has today.”