Immaculate Ingabire
Rwanda
In my own life, both professionally and personally, I have dedicated my efforts to
advocacy for gender sensitive laws.
I live in Kigali, Rwanda, where I work at national and regional level as
coordinator of a coalition fighting violence against women. My responsibilities
include advocacy, sensitization, training as well as providing legal aid to
women survivors of violence.
I call myself feminist, because I believe and am committed to the struggle for:
equality between men and women. This principle, grounds the work I do to
tirelessly fight for a world where violence against women is not accepted as a
norm, where women’s rights are the norm rather than the exception and where
we have successfully eradicated discrimination based on gender.
Feminists in Africa face many challenges, but to me the most important are
those resulting from the social and cultural environment that is deeply shaped
by patriarchal values and beliefs. The deeply entrenched nature of these values
is what shapes current attitudes, beliefs and practices towards all members of
society. Most commonly, I have seen how this has not only engendered within
women a lack of self-confidence, but it has also contributed towards increasing
poverty among women and a justification for discrimination that contributes to
the pervasive violence we see on our continent today. Despite the gains we
have made as feminists, we continue to face resistance to dismantling of this
patriarchal system.
I believe we can address these challenges if we commit ourselves to ongoing
networking at local, national, regional and international levels to combine
our efforts and become this force that is unstoppable. We need to bring on
board more women at all levels who are willing to work in small and big ways
towards these goals in the private and the public domain. We need to provide
the support for women to be able to do that. We also need to ensure that we
increase the number of women in decision-making organs.
In my own life, both professionally and personally, I have dedicated my efforts
to advocacy for gender sensitive laws. I have also worked directly to ensure that
our organisations are strong and able to build a movement of women through
sensitization and creation of women only spaces so that we start shifting the
status quo, and we are better able to deal with the challenges that come
our way. In my activism, I draw inspiration from my own and the personal
experiences of women I know, in particular the experience of my mother.
VPS II
. 61