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NEW YORK - Twenty years after a three-month genocide ravaged their country, Rwandan women have rebuilt - playing some of the most powerful roles in the reconstruction of the African nation.
Today, Rwanda is ranked first in the world - of 189 countries placed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union - for women's representation in parliament. Holding down 51 of the 80 lower or single house parliamentary seats, women make up 63 percent of the governing body as of the country's last elections in September of 2013.
This is a sharp incline, considering that in November of 1994, four months after the end of the genocide, women accounted for just 17 percent of parliament. And it was a necessary step toward recovery, according to Ambassador Fatuma Ndangiza, deputy chief executive officer for the Rwanda Governance Board.
A country must "build space for women to feel safe, share voices," Ndangiza told a massive audience packed into the New York City Lincoln Center earlier this month for the 2014 Women in the World Summit.
"It's been a revolution of the whole society, but women are at the center," added her fellow panelist, professor Mathilde Mukantabana, ambassador of the Republic of Rwanda to the United States.
For many of those who remained in Rwanda, the process toward revival has taken many forms - from representational growth for women in government to reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. They have exemplified power and resilience, and the same can be said for those Rwandans who made their way to distant lands.
Eugenie Mukeshimana, founder and executive director of the New Jersey based Genocide Survivors Support Network, was 8 months pregnant when the genocide began. Going into labor in the throes of conflict, she was forced to use a rusted knife to cut her daughter out of herself. Mukeshimana later came to the United States, a new mother and a widow of the mass killings.
Upon her arrival, she applied to college and studied social work. She wanted...