Assessing Gender Based Violence under Rwandan Law. Case of Assault and Battery

Essay from the year 2022 in the subject Law - Public Law / Constitutional Law / Basic Rights, , language: English, abstract: This paper discusses physical violence, or assault and battery as otherwise referred to, as one of the forms of gender-based violence (GBV) in Rwandan law. The main objective is to determine and analyze the causes and effects of this form of GBV. The paper looks into the existing legal framework and various policies put in place to address the issue and determine how investigations and prosecution of the offence are effectively conducted.

The existing relevant case law reveals there is an issue of qualification of the offence and its punishment due to the causes of this criminal behavior, including drunkenness, drugs, bad character, accidental event, etc. It also appears controversial to distinguish spousal harassment that has a battery and assault dimension of the assault and battery offence provided in the law determining offences and their Penalties in General. The paper concludes with suggestions on how these challenges of qualification and punishment of the offence can be overcome.