Twenty-five years after the genocide in Rwanda trauma runs deep, dividing Rwandan society. Nearly a million people were victims of the genocide in 1994, and around 250,000 women were raped. Today, victims and perpetrators dwell side by side. Although women have gained social status over the past two decades, the rape victims and their children are still stigmatized. Many young women, however, have helped their mothers heal.

A new book by Olaf Heine, Rwandan Daughters (Hatje Cantz, April 2019), features portraits of women who were raped alongside the daughters born of the crime. The women – their hands, shoulders or knees touching in most images – are photographed from a distance at the scene of the rape.

“Heine’s photos show us the courage, strength, hope, dignity, and optimism radiating from these women, despite the suffering they have endured,” writes Hatje Cantz in the press release. Rwandan Daughters also contains brief statements from the women about how they dealt with their experiences, as well as informative essays by Neue Zürcher Zeitung editor Antje Stahl, curator Matthias Harder, and journalist Andrea Jeska.

Produced in collaboration with ora Kinderhilfe, an organization that provides psychological and financial support for the victims in Rwanda, Hatje Cantz will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to Rwandan mothers and daughters.

Rwandan Daughters
Photographs by Olaf Heine
Hatje Cantz, April 2019

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