Two Harvard-educated lawyers, Binaifer Nowrojee and Christopher J. Ayres, described personal experiences with the 1994 mass genocide in Rwanda in a speech given Monday to the Harvard African Students' Association (HASA).

Both Nowrojee and Ayres have worked in Africa, and are activists for human rights in Rwanda.

Nowrojee, who is originally from Kenya and is now a tutor in Lowell House, worked with Human Rights Watch to successfully push the United Nations (UN) to recognize rape as a war crime.

Ayres, a Harvard Law School graduate and current director of the Cambridge-based Amahoro Advocacy Clinic, and Shelter Inc., began a term as the UN attorney in Rwanda in 1994.

As a result of Nowrojee's work, rape is now prosecuted as a war crime by the International Criminal Tribunal, which is investigating the situation in Rwanda.

During the speech, Nowrojee discussed her observations on sexual violence in the country.

"I found that women were held in sexual slavery. Often women were brutalized by gun butts, sticks, and other objects and then mutilated," Nowrojee said.

"Another 16-year-old who was raped repeatedly could not get medical attention. Some time later, the girl was treated by UN medics and they found that she had a severe infection and was HIV positive," she said.

Ayers discussed how the conflict affected people of all ages.