Rape victim picture wins award
Published on: 08-Nov-2007
A picture of a Rwandan rape victim has won a top portrait prize.Photographer Jonathan Torgovnik scooped £12,000 for his atmospheric picture of a woman standing with her arms around the daughter she bore during the 1994 genocide.
Josephine Ingabire, a 38-year-old Tutsi, was already two months pregnant when Hutu militia raped her.
One of the attacks, which continued during and after her pregnancy, resulted in the birth of daughter Leah.
Mr Torgovnik took the photo as part of a series called 'Intended Consequences: Mothers of Genocide, Children of Rape'.
He told BBC News how the picture showed, at first sight, "how beautiful" they were.
He added: "You look at the mother's eyes…her beauty is there, yes, but there is something quiet and terrible behind that."
The older daughter, Hossiana stands in the background of the picture and Josephine told Mr Torgovnik at the time the photograph was taken: "I never loved Leah…I love my first daughter because I gave birth to her as result of love."
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu sympathisers died in the genocide.
Estimates put the killings, mainly committed by Hutu militia extremist groups, at one million.
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