Eugene

Pity the soul that faces Eugene in a court of law. A native Rwandan, Eugene is a member of the Rwandan bar as well as a crusader for justice for the "least of these" in his country. Eugene is the kind of guy who comes off as soft-spoken and gentle, but has a stealthy strength that would dominate in a courtroom.

Eugene works in partnership with the Rwandan office of the International Justice Mission. He handles a range of issues there, and his duties include defending street children and orphans who have been victims of abuse, helping women who have been cast out by their husbands who have found new wives, defending women and girls who have been sexually abused, and helping women establish wills and gaining titles to their property.

He explained to us that in Rwanda, property rights are not nearly as solidified and ingrained into the societal structure as they are in the United States. He told us about one of his clients, a woman with four children, whose husband died with no will. She and her children were cast to the street by his greedy extended family who then divided up his property amongst themselves. In world with limited property rights, women and children often lose out. He told us about another family where the mother died, and when the father remarried, his new wife threw out the children because she wanted her children to be first in line to any inheritance. Eugene told us that this happens 80% of the time a man remarries after a first wife dies. In country like Rwanda, where the life expectancy is low and diseases like AIDS and malaria are so prevalent, it is not uncommon for a parent to die while he or she still has young children.

Eugene had to leave after our meeting to go defend in court a 12 year-old girl who was so brutally raped that she was still in the intensive care unit of the hospital. The day before, he had met with another client, a woman whose husband beat her, stole her property, and abandoned her with her children and grandchild. She had thrown away any paper evidence of the abuse and theft, because she had thought it so implausible that anyone would defend her, for free no less. He told us that in Rwanda, "domestic violence is more or less an accepted norm." He told us that last year, 2,500 instances of street children and orphans being abused had been brought to the attention of the police, and none had been investigated by the government.

Eugene depressed me. But Eugene also impressed me. Eugene thinks like a lawyer. In other words, he doesn't get totally bogged down in the how and now. He sees a bigger picture, and talked to us about the importance of setting precedents, being strategic, affecting change by slowly working the system. He told us that affecting the macro must be done through the micro. And their office must be doing something right, as they had just won an award for the best non-profit legal sector in Rwanda for their effectiveness.

The law junkie in me loved talking to Eugene. He knew the code words, "the power of legal precedent."