![]() Millions of people took refuge in neighbouring countries while others were jailed due to being suspected or convicted of genocide crimes. The genocide impacted the country in many ways. The perpetrators of the genocide were mostly from the Hutu ethnic group and were often neighbours, friends, or relatives of the victims. In 1994, Rwanda experienced the genocide against the Tutsis that took nearly one million lives, with most of the victims being Tutsis Footnote 1. ![]() Findings specifically show that some youth avoid reconciliation with a perpetrator’s family due to mistrust as well as fear of re-traumatizing their own parents. Intergenerational trauma among youth with genocide survivor parents limits their involvement in post-genocide reconciliation processes. Additionally, when transmitted to genocide survivor descendants, such trauma is understood to negatively affect their psychological and social well-being. Genocide-related trauma among survivor parents is seen as often being triggered by both life at home and the annual genocide commemoration events. Resultsįindings from this study suggest that the trauma experienced by genocide survivor parents is perceived by Rwandan youth, mental health and peace-building professionals, and survivor parents themselves to be transmitted from parent to child through human biology mechanisms, social patterns of silence and disclosure of genocide experiences, and children’s and youth’s everyday contact with a traumatized parent. An inductive thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the data. Respondents were recruited through five local organisations that work closely with survivors and their descendants. Ten IDIs were also conducted with mental health and peace-building professionals in the capital city of Kigali. Individual interviews (IDIs) included 19 post-genocide descendants of survivors and six focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with 36 genocide survivor parents residing in Rwanda’s Eastern Province. MethodsĪ qualitative study was conducted in Rwanda among youth born after the genocide, with parents who survived the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis and among mental health and peace-building professionals. Building on a growing body of research on the generational transmission of trauma, our study addressed the following questions: (1) what are the possible mechanisms of trauma transmission from older generation to post-genocide Rwandan youth, and (2) what are the effects of intergenerational trauma on reconciliation processes in Rwanda. Many adult survivors were severely traumatized by the events, and young people, including those who were born after the genocide, have experienced similar genocide-related trauma. More than one million Rwandans were killed over a span of one hundred days during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.
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