Women are more likely than men to be in vulnerable jobs, or to be unemployed, to lack social protection, and to have limited access to and control over financial resources. Women in both developed and developing countries are facing job cuts, lose of livelihoods, increased responsibilities in all areas of their life, and even an increased risk of violence.

PROEXPOSURE believes in putting power back into women’s hands – literally. For us, a camera is power.

For the female photographers we’ve trained in Ethiopia and Rwanda, life will never be the same again.

To mark International Women’s Day on 8th March 2011, PROEXPOSURE photographers Betelhem, Yenenesh, Freweini, Alem, Gisele and Grace tell what being a jobbing photographer means to them.

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>>Follow our PROEXPOSURE jobbing photographer’s blog here

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On the International Day for the World’s Indigenous People PROEXPOSURE looks at the challenges that people face and how photography can help them to raise their voice
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A slideshow by Laura Storr with PROEXPOSURE August 2010 

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Photos and video of the Free Encampment Land in Brasilia, May 2009 by Augusto Marcos de Oliveira Santiago, Caju/ CESE. Over 1200 representatives of 130 Indigenous Peoples of Brazil gather to demand their rights.

Fotos e vídeos do Acampamento Terra Livre realizado em maio de 2009 em Brasília, Povos Indígenas do Brasil by Augusto Marcos de Oliveira Santiago, Caju/ CESE.

 >>Watch Free Encampment Land Film

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>>PROEXPOSURE is a photography enterprise with a difference

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How genocide changed Rwanda’s women

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Sarah Davison April 2010 

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Rwandan women live with the scars of war. Many are trying to rebuild their lives after losing homes, livestock and belongings. All said they would never be the same again. 

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Katherine, a 66-year-old retired teacher, wants to show me something. She pulls up her t-shirt to reveal a jagged vertical scar running the length of her abdomen. It looks raised and sore, like it never healed properly. She runs her fingers over the scar, her eyes don’t leave mine.

“She had a… an emergency… a forced caesarean,” explains the translator, struggling to find the English words to describe the horror of genocide. “Her baby was born too early. Soldiers cut him out… because of hatred.”

It was my first day in Rwanda, my first interview even, but this physical testimony, this revealing of wounds, soon became normal. It was both distressing and an honour. I was witnessing women’s genocide stories, close up. These were marks of sorrow and survival. 

Agnes, 90, showed me where her left breast had been sliced off by machete. An 18-year-old showed me the stump of her arm. Verene, 67, held up a hospital X-ray and pointed out the breaks in her spine. I saw the deep cuts on 44-year-old Collette’s legs where she was beaten with a chain.

The world has largely forgotten the genocide in April 1994, when a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days. But 16 years on, Rwandan women live with the scars of war. Around 50,000 became widows and it’s estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 were raped. Of these, 67 per cent are now HIV positive as a direct result. It is no wonder they talk about their lives in two parts: before and after 1994.

The women I met were not victims, far from it. Many were trying to rebuild their lives after losing homes, livestock and belongings. Some were still severely traumatised. All said they would never be the same again. But their strength was tangible. How else could they carry on, work, raise children, care for orphans, live alongside the released prisoners who killed their loved ones, find the strength to forgive?

“The genocide has changed us,” says Liberate Mukagihana, 45. “We have become political. We want knowledge and power. We want a better future for our children. But to create change, we must change. We must step out of the shadows and be bold. We must unite for peace.”

Liberate is the epitome of ‘before and after’. Before the genocide she was a farmer. Her old life was “simple, normal”. Today, she is a trained paralegal involved in complex genocide cases including murder, rape, and kidnap. She works for free, one of 80 volunteers trained and supported by Avega East, a Rwandan widow’s association founded by survivors for survivors.

As a paralegal, Liberate stands up in court within the context of a notoriously flawed, sometimes corrupt, community justice system called ‘gacaca’. Gacaca courts were introduced by the Rwandan government in 2001 as a way of dealing with over 100,000 genocide perpetrators and relieving strain on the country’s overcrowded prisons.

Gacaca courts have thrown many survivors into a legal arena they know nothing about. Step forward Liberate and her army of female paralegals. Poor women, living in poor communities, they give doorstep advice to friends and neighbours. “It’s good to be involved in legal work, especially at the grassroots,” says Liberate. “Most women don’t know their rights but if a few of us are trained, we can spread the word. I think women are courageous, we share our skills and help each other – we have done for years!”

To meet her now, with her quiet determination and ready laugh, it’s hard to imagine Liberate any other way. But for years after the genocide she says her life was “broken”. She describes in vivid detail the moment her son was beaten to death while she cradled him. “I lay next to the pit where his body was dumped for hours, perhaps days,” she remembers.  

In 2007 Liberate went through a court case to bring her son’s killer, a village chief, to justice. Unhappy with the verdict, she appealed and won – her first of many legal victories. So what drives her on? “I don’t just want to survive, I want to live again and I want others to do the same,” she explains. “Because we are now the majority, women have become the foundations of our communities. If you build strong communities, you can build a strong country.”

In post-genocide Rwanda, women are intrinsically involved in power, politics and peace. Before 1994, women held around one in five parliamentary seats. In 2008, Rwanda’s female MPs made history by becoming the first in the world to outnumber their male counterparts at 56 per cent. Nearly half were elected in women-only seats, with the rest triumphing in open ballots.

“When I see women in government, making decisions, it gives me renewed hope,” says Liberate. “We are not broken, we are not defeated. We are stronger than before.”

Journalist Sarah Davison visited Rwanda to see how women are coping after genocide with PROEXPOSURE’s Annie Bungeroth

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>>See Slideshow Before and after: how genocide changed Rwanda’s women by Annie Bungeroth

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More than three consecutive years of failed rains in East Africa has caused the worst drought in ten years.

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A slideshow by PROEXPOSURE photographers Karayour Debese Wariyo, Dama Boru, Dhaki Tukuu and Borbor Bule. 

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>>PROEXPOSURE is a photography enterprise with a difference

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