Impact: Safety from Violence after Speaking Out

NIJC partner pro bono attorneys won asylum for a Rwandan woman whose entire family was murdered by rebel forces during the country’s 1994 genocide. She was forced to flee persecution after speaking about the crime. In 2004, five days after she identified some of the attackers in a court hearing, two returned to her home and raped her, saying that her “day to die would come soon.” Seeking safety, she moved to another region of Rwanda. But the rebels found her. They bound her, tied a plastic bag around her neck, and left her to suffocate. Amazingly, she survived, fled Rwanda, and came to the United States, where she was granted asylum in 2009.