Despite the gains that have been made in Rwanda towards gender equality, findings continue to show the long journey that has to be made to fully achieve gender equality in the country.

If the findings announced to parliament this week by the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion are anything to go by, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to put the woman in Rwanda in her rightful place.

According to the findings, at least 64 per cent of women who were sampled found justification for being beaten by their husbands, a major setback to efforts to uproot gender based violence in families in Rwanda.

Rwanda has for the past close to three decades stood out globally as a country that agitates for rights of women across all sectors starting with implementing commitments made under the Beijing Declaration in 1995, just one year after the Genocide against the Tutsi.

For instance, 25 years after the Beijing Declaration, Rwanda managed to deliver on its commitments in promoting gender equality and empowerment of women and is ranked now as the 6th world wide by 2018 World Economic Forum global gender gap report. It ranks number one in Africa.

It is known as the country that has given political and economic power to women in different areas.

However, the revelation jolts us to reality that beyond political will to put the Rwandan woman in her rightful place, there is need for continued education for women, especially those in the rural areas to come out of the bondage in which they were kept for generations – which could explain the mindset displayed from the findings in the abovementioned survey.

Such findings therefore validate the estimation by WEF that it may take 132 years to close the gender gap, in economy, political participation, education, among other sectors.

However, Rwanda being a solution-oriented country, and with the policy infrastructure and political support towards empowering women, we do not need all those years to fix this problem that is clearly a mindset issue.