The dissertation presents the relationship between the process of identity formation, gender dynamics and practices of marginalization of difference in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. More specifically, the main purpose is to assess how the production of difference - in particular, gender difference – acts constitutively in the local imaginary, allowing the adoption of sexual violence fostered by the Rwandan state. In this context, the research highlights the interconnection between the body politic and body-politics, allowing the construction of national identity based on gender and entered in the individual s physical body. Therefore, it is argued that sexual violence is a political practice, informed by a gendered social construction, in which Tutsi women s bodies becomes the object of state intervention. The theoretical framework underlying the analysis is based on the contributions of gender poststructuralist perspectives, contemplating the dynamic in which plural and mobile identities are combined and socially constructed in order to establish an intersection that outlines the profile of the target group, specifying the type of violence being perpetrated in an attempt to build a pure and homogenous community.