Disclosure of Genocide Experiences in Rwandan Families: Private and Public Sources of Information and Child Outcomes

It has now been 26 years since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi took place in Rwanda, and many ofthose who lived through it are today raising the next generation of Rwandans. This study explored the cultural practices of Rwandan parents surrounding exposure of their children to accounts of genocide history in both the private and public realm, the age at which children were exposed to information from different sources, and the extent to which exposure moderated parent-reported child outcomes. A survey of 317 parents was conducted across each of Rwanda’s four provinces and Kigali City. Results found that parents disclosed the genocide openly with their children and that children were exposed to information about the genocide from the community. Parents tended to share stories at home before exposing their children to public sources of information. Significant correlations were found between a number of private (parent disclosure) and public (commemoration, school) sources of information about the genocide and a range of parent-reported child problem outcomes (mental health problems, communication problems, social problems, education problems, and general parental challenges related to the genocide). Qualitative content analysis suggested that this correlation may be the result of incongruence between the stories of the genocide and its history in private and public spaces.