Bernadine Nyiramugisha claims she lived with a man out of wedlock in her hometown of Rugerero in Rwanda and they had two children together.

By Zack Baddorf, Rwanda

“But after three years, the man left,” she said. “He went to look for another woman and married her. Now he won’t recognise his children and he doesn’t help me to educate them.”

Normally, to prove the father’s paternity, Nyiramugisha would have to brave the Rwandan legal justice system on her own.  Instead, she traveled an hour and a half by bus to the northwest Rwandan city of Gisenyi to get free legal advice at the Gisenyi Legal Aid Clinic.

“I came here to the legal aid center and they advised me to go to court so that he would be ordered to help me to educate our children. I went to court for the first time, and I won,” said the 33-year-old Rwandan.

The alleged father appealed to a higher court and Nyiramugisha’s victory was overturned. So she returned to Gisenyi to work with one of the legal center’s 50 lawyers, Pascal Dusengeyeru, to prepare her own appeal.

Post genocide
Since he started working here five months ago, Dusengeyeru said he has helped about 30 Rwandans at the legal aid center, which is funded by Avocats sans Frontières (Lawyers without Borders). Mostly he helps with paternity cases and land disputes.
 
After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that left 800,000 dead, hundreds of thousands fled the country. Since then, Rwandans have been returning to their homeland and some have found their land occupied by others. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that land disputes are about 80 percent of the cases presented before provincial courts. 

Dusengeyeru said he has been successful in helping his clients. “When the people come to us, sometimes they are in trouble but after providing them legal advice, they feel confident. They feel better,” the lawyer said.

Dusengeyeru added that he enjoys helping his clients, mostly the poor, orphans, those with HIV or AIDS and also the illiterates.  UN reports that just about two out of three Rwandans can read and write.

“Those people, they are from the villages and they don’t know anything about their legal rights,” he explained.

Rwanda takes over
Mary Louise Mukasuma, who manages the legal aid center, said it’s important for people to be able to get legal advice.

“Access to justice is one of the indications of development,” she said.

Responding to the need, the Rwandan Ministry of Justice has built 13 Access to Justice legal aid bureaus across the country.

Mukasuma said she hopes that when the Lawyers Without Borders legal aid center closes in 2012, the government’s centers are ready and able to cater for all Rwandans in need of legal advice.