She was born a Rwandan refugee in Uganda, where her parents herded cattle. A bright and determined student, she went to class under a tree using a borrowed identity, was smuggled across borders to continue her schooling, graduated from Uganda's Makerere University and studied law on a scholarship in Australia. But inevitably, she returned to Rwanda to work. Now 42, Justine Mbabazi has become one of the new female leaders in her homeland: a lawyer who drafted Rwanda's first legislation against gender-based violence, country director of the American Bar Association, and former executive director of a legal network that brought the rights of women to the forefront of national politics and played a critical role in the debate over a new constitution, reports The Washington Post.