Counting the Countless

Abstract

Rape is regularly committed during a period of collective violence such as war. The article discusses the Rwandan genocide during which rape was used with the deliberate intent to destroy in whole or in part the Tutsi community. Rape is not often studied in such particular contexts, so little is known about its prevalence in genocide; as a consequence, the comprehensive impact of genocidal incidents remains underaddressed. We estimate the prevalence of rape victimization (i.e., the number of women raped) during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In doing so, we apply a methodology in which we use conservative victimization estimates, disaggregating between victims who were killed and victims who survived. We arrive at an estimated lower bound of a little more than 350,000 female rape victims, most of whom were Tutsi. We discuss the importance of arriving at reliable estimates, the methodology, and implications for future research.