Alice Urusaro Karekezi, an activist and lecturer with a background in law, has a long history of defending women’s rights in post-conflict settings. Karekezi has done most of her work in Kigali, Rwanda. With 20 years of experience fighting for women’s rights and gender-based violence in post-conflict settings, and regional peace and security. Karekezi is a fierce advocate for change and respect for women’s human rights. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and left in 1991 to study and work in Europe, namely in France and Belgium. She has completed her PhD at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
In 1994, after the Rwandan genocide, Alice Urusaro Karekezi fought to ensure sexual violence was punished as a war crime. As she affirmed in an interview for the National Geographic magazine, she and many others left well-paying jobs abroad to return to their homeland. “We came here to build (Kigali),” said Karekezi. In 1999 she became the co-founder of the Centre for Conflict Management.
