Policy Brief No.

25

POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YOUNG

RWANDANS IMPACTED BY THE 1994 GENOCIDE
By Marie Grace Kagoyire, Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding Scholar
January 2024

Key Points

• Trauma resulting from direct experience of war or genocide can impact the mental health and psychosocial
lives of people born years or decades after such events.
• If the trauma experienced by the children of survivors or perpetrators of mass violence is neglected, the risk
of recurring cycles of violence increases.
• Post-conflict reconstruction policies and programs in Rwanda and elsewhere must address the impact
of inter-generational trauma on the lives of younger generations and increasing their involvement in
peacebuilding initiatives.

Intergenerational trauma has not been given adequate attention in Rwanda. Young Rwandans – the children of
survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide that left roughly a million (mostly Tutsi) Rwandans dead over a
hundred-day period of mass killing – are critical to the sustainability of reconciliation and peacebuilding in the
country. But their pain and suffering has largely been ignored in the various programs and initiatives – many of
which have been successful – to rebuild Rwandan society and leave its terrible past behind.

Trauma is understood as what happens within us when we become overwhelmed by memories of terrible or
difficult experiences in our lives. Anyone who has experienced genocide – the deliberate and systematic attempt
to destroy a defined people or group – is obviously hugely prone to trauma. The high levels of mental health and
psychosocial problems, mistrust, fear and disrupted relationships found in Rwanda are directly related to what
happened in 1994 [1]. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and panic attacks are among the most
common consequences found among adults. But similar trauma symptoms are evident in young people [2] with
no direct experience of genocide, including various forms of antisocial behaviours and suicidal tendencies [3].

Family narratives about the genocide, as well as the proclivity towards silence over what happened, help fan the
flames of intergenerational trauma [4].

The Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding: Centering African knowledge and agency is key to building and
sustaining peace in Africa. The Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP) works with the Wilson Center’s
Africa Program to attain the most appropriate, cohesive, and inclusive policy frameworks and approaches for achieving
sustainable peace in Africa. Generously sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York since its establishment in
2011, the SVNP works to generate African knowledge to inform US and international peacebuilding policies on Africa;
help build the next generation of African peacebuilders through its scholarship program; and create a pan-African
network of African peacebuilding organizations, practitioners, and experts to collaborate and share knowledge, best
practices, and lessons learned on peacebuilding in Africa.

This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and
views expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the author and do not represent the views of the Wilson
Center or Carnegie Corporation of New York. For more information please visit:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/the-southern-voices-network-for-peacebuilding
Inherited Trauma in Young Rwandans

The trauma of the past can shape the mental health and psychosocial lives of subsequent generations is well
documented, from Cambodia under Pol Pot to Nazi Germany. In each place where it occurs, the symptoms may
take different forms, depending on the experiences and memories of those who were directly affected. In my
own research in Rwanda, I have observed a number of worrying commonalities among young people, including
regular bouts of otherwise inexplicable crying, sadness and grief, especially during times of official genocide
memorialisation and commemorative events [5]. Also common is the fear among young people that they might
be the next target of killing, perhaps at the hands of someone they know, even a neighbour [6]. Self-isolation
and withdrawing from others is also a typical response, in attempting to escape the stigma of their parents
being, for example, raped or publicly revived traumatic events, in the case of survivors; or being responsible for
killing another person from the village or community, in the case of perpetrators.

Potential Interventions
In society-at-large, the Rwandan government has made a number of sweeping reforms and initiatives to
build peace and heal the wounds of the past, whilst striving to achieve a prosperous and stable nation. Major
mechanisms included the establishment of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), to
coordinate trauma-healing processes towards reconciliation, the roll-out of Rwandan transitional justice courts,
known as Gacaca, where traditional local elders presided over nearly two million genocide cases, initiated to
hold perpetrators accountable but also heal the nation from past traumatic wounds and reconcile genocide
survivors and their perpetrators; and the annual genocide commemoration events and rituals. For those directly
affected by the genocide, there was also treatment and training given to professionals to enable victims and
perpetrators to address the consequent mental health challenges [7].

Nevertheless, young people have been largely ignored in these efforts. Three decades after the genocide, they
are seemingly as negatively affected as their parents. Of the approximately 13% of health centers in Rwanda
that provide mental health services, there remain serious gaps in the treatment available to young people.
Complicating matters is the still widespread publica perceptions about mental health, where ‘disorders’ are often
attributed to poisoning or bad spirits [8]. The result is that religious and traditional healers are often consulted
instead of trained professionals. Rwanda’s current national policy on mental health considers youth in general
but does not address intergenerational trauma nor provide relevant services and training for health care
practitioners.

Impact on Peacebuilding

Intergenerational trauma in post-conflict societies is a crisis of the past in the present. Global experience and
research on trauma are clear that when young people suffer, the worst instincts – such as mistrust and fear of
other groups, enmity towards those perceived to better-off or unfairly advantaged in some way – flourish [9].
This kind of trauma reduces young people’s capacity for collaboration, empathy and building a more unified
society. And it makes recurring cycles of violence more likely.

Policy Recommendations

1. For the government of Rwanda:

• Mobilize funding to train specialized professionals and carry inter-generational trauma-sensitive mental
health care at local level. This should be done by the Ministry of Health in consultation with the Ministry
of Unity and Civic Engagement, and the next official mental health national strategy should be aligned
accordingly.
• The government must, in policy, recognise that young people must be consulted while designing
interventions to help them and actively involved and given some agency in addressing the problems
affecting their lives.

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• The Rwandan government should create a public awareness campaign about the need for psycho-social
support and education of young people in the intergenerational impacts of the genocide.
• Rwanda’s multi-faceted approach to peacebuilding should add another pillar, focused solely on the children
of genocide survivors and perpetrators, and promote their healing as necessary to ensuring Rwanda’s future
stability and prosperity. Local community infrastructures such as schools and youth council committees,
should be tasked with identifying youth most affected or vulnerable to inter-generational trauma and
resourced to provide relevant assistance through community-based trauma healing structures.

2. For the US Government:

• The role of trauma in contributing to cycles of violence is recognized by the U.S government and prioritized
under the Bureau for Conflict Prevention and stabilization. Rwanda should be added to list of US partners in
tackling the scourge of intergenerational trauma and its impact on peacebuilding.
• The US should take a global leadership role in developing Comprehensive Mental Health and psychosocial
support programmes for peacebuilding in post-conflict societies that are tailored to different age groups
and contexts, with the corresponding mechanisms to coordinate and monitor its implementation.

3. For International funding organisations:

• International donors should prioritize long-term trauma-sensitive projects, which help de-stigmatise mental
health issues in Rwanda.

4. For civil society:

• . The participation of parents in peacebuilding programs has proved to be important for their descendants
in stopping the transmission of prejudices [10]. Civil society should prioritize intergenerational dialogues
based on a comprehensive approach to healing and reconciliation across generations.
• Civil society must promote community based inter-ethnic group dialogues to confront past trauma,
especially by forging new understandings amongst young people that the past need not be a guide to the
future.

1. Naasson Munyandamutsa et al., ‘Mental and Physical Health in Rwanda 14 Years after the Genocide’, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric
Epidemiology 47 (2012): 1753–61.

2. Young people in the context of this paper include adolescents and young adults

3. Yvonne Kayiteshonga et al., ‘Prevalence of Mental Disorders, Associated Co-Morbidities, Health Care Knowledge and Service Utilization
in Rwanda – towards a Blueprint for Promoting Mental Health Care Services in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?’, BMC Public Health
22, no. 1 (2022): 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14165-x.

4. Pumla and others Gobodo-Madikizela, Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Repetition: A Global Dialogue on Historical Trauma and
Recovery, ed. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Toronto: Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2016), https://doi.org/0.3224/84740613.

5. Interview with youth, youth Rwanda

6. Ibid

7. Mukamana et.al., (2019). A community-Based Mental Health Intervention: Promoting Mental Health Services in Rwanda. available at
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Darius-Gishoma/publication/355867763_A_Community-Based_Mental_Health_Intervention_
Promoting_Mental_Health_Services_in_Rwanda/links/64c3aa2f0fae1319bfbea8e7/A-Community-Based-Mental-Health-Intervention-
Promoting-Mental-Health-Services-in-Rwanda.pdf

8. See for instance: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.638377/full

9. Kang, Ezer, Christophe Mbonyingabo, Lu Qin, Grace K. Mwemere, Alissa Charvonia, Jordan Snyder, Vanessa Camelo Lopez, and Cynthia
Neal Kimball. 2021

10. Ezer Kang et al., ‘Is Outgroup Prejudice Passed Down Generationally in Rwanda After the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi?’, Peace and
Conflict 28, no. 1 (2021): 49–62, https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000578.

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Ms. Marie Grace Kagoyire Gasinzigwa is a Ph.D. candidate in the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department
of Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Her work experiences centred on mental health
and psychosocial support in post conflict society. Her research interest focuses on understanding how young
Rwandans descending of genocide perpetrators and survivors make sense of the traumatic past and envision
their future role in making the genocide never again a reality. The effects of genocide among women survivors
of rape, intergenerational legacies of the genocide, and intersection between intergenerational trauma and
reconciliation among second-generation in Rwanda are among some of her publications. She was a Southern
Voices Network for Peacebuilding Scholar for the Fall 2023 term in Washington, DC.

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