Fatuma Ndangiza

Fatuma Ndangiza (born 1968) is a women's rights advocate, policy expert, and politician. As of January 2024, she is serving her second term as a Rwandan member of the East African Legislative Assembly. Born and raised in a refugee camp in Uganda, she returned to Rwanda during the civil war. Initially she settled in Byumba and led the SOS Ramira initiative to assist women and children in acquiring basic supplies and treatment to meet their needs. When the Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of Kigali, she moved to the capital and began working in the Ministry for Women and Family Promotion to provide support and relief to survivors and victims of the Rwandan genocide. She helped to create the National Women's Council and its regional and local frameworks to empower women to help them achieve political and economic parity through legal change and advocacy. She worked with the women's ministry until 2002.

Quotes

• It highlights the importance of self-reliance, unity, and shared responsibility in addressing national and global challenges.
  • https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/27783/news/rwanda/a-standard-of-good-governance-reflections-on-rwanda-at-31( New Times, Friday, July 04, 2025)

• It’s important to treat men as allies rather than seeing them as people who are responsible for our situation.
• Gender imbalances are societal challenges. They're the result of attitudes that might target women but these are not problems made by men.

• It requires a political will and leadership that favors women’s participation in decision making, and women organizing to advocate for their rights.

• We have to be very careful. We have to understand the context. We have to also take into consideration the concerns and the fears of men.
• The equality that we want is equality in terms of opportunities… not equality for us to be like men.