This is the third part of the panel discussion on the book and exhibition then on view at Aperture Gallery, "Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape," photographs and interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik. Dr. Carl Auerbach responds to the subject matter and discusses what one can do in response to the current situation in Rwanda.

Dr. Carl Auerbach, Associate Professor of Psychology, received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He is the co-director, with Dr. Louise Silverstein, of the Fatherhood Project. His research interests are the evolution of family structures, and the psychology of trauma.


Commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and coinciding with the exhibition on view, the discussion took place on April 29, 2009 at Aperture Gallery. Panelists included the artist Jonathan Torgovnik, who is also co-founder of Foundation Rwanda; Carl Auerbach, Professor of Psychology at Yeshiva University; and Melissa Robinson, Director of Educational Programming of the non-profit organization Kids for Tomorrow. Rwandan women Marie Claudine Mukamabano, a genocide survivor, Rosette Burakari Adera, whose parents were Rwandan refugees and Yvette Rugasaguhunga, read testimonies of the genocide survivors portrayed in the exhibition and book.

This important exhibition and book bring together the powerful portraits and testimonies of Rwandan women who were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups during the 1994 genocide, and who all bore a child as a result. Fifteen years later, the mothers of these estimated 20,000 children still face enormous challenges, among them, being stigmatized within their communities for bearing a child fathered by a Hutu militiaman; many of them contracted HIV during the same encounters that left them pregnant.