House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group on Rwanda and Genocide

On 2nd of June, an all party Parliamentary Group on Rwanda and genocide was launched at the House of Commons.

The launching ceremony was presided over by Oona King, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and Dr Jenny Tong a Lib Dem MP who were among the parliamentary team which visited Rwanda early 1998.

The ceremony was also attended by Rwandan Minister of Family and Gender development, Mrs Aloysia Inyumba, as well as a survivor of the genocide Ester Mujawayo who had come from Rwanda to give her testimony.

Ms Oona King said that, before she visited Rwanda, she did not understand that Hutu and Tutsi were not tribes.

She recalled that the Rwandan genocide was the most intensive genocide the World had ever experienced and appealed to the international community to prevent another genocide.

In her speech, Minister Inyumba said that after the genocide, poverty in Rwanda increased dramatically.

Up to 70% of the seven million Rwandan population live below the poverty line, she said.

According to the minister, 35% of the families are headed by widows while 60% of the total population, 35% of which are women,are illiterate.

In order to correct the past mistakes which were caused by bad governance, Minister Inyumba said that the Government had abolished identity cards which carry the mention of ethnic identities.

Equally, discriminatory laws in education had been scrapped.

A forum of all communities have been set up to discuss the difficult issues which divided the people of Rwanda.