Government is set to open a girls’ rehabilitation and skills development centre to take on delinquent girls.

The centre, which will be built in the Eastern Province’s Bugesera District, will host girls addicted to drugs, according to Rosemary Mbabazi, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Youth and ICT.

Mbabazi told The New Times, last week, that the construction works for the centre will start in the next financial year. The facility will be constructed in three phases and is expected to be completed in 2020, she said.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, they have finalised the master plan for the construction of the rehabilitation centre,’’ she said.

"The facility will be used to enhance rehabilitation and reintegration of girls who are addicted to drugs back into society and provide them with development skills after rehabilitation,” she noted.

However, Mbabazi said the emphasis is put more on prevention and community outreach programmes.

"We will rehabilitate those who are off-balance, but the emphasis is on prevention and sensitisation,” she said.

Currently, there is no girls’ rehabilitation centre in the country. Iwawa Rehabilitation and Vocational Skills Development Centre (IRVSDC), located in the Western Province’s Rutsiro District caters for boys only.

According to a study conducted by the Ministry of Youth and ICT, in collaboration with Kigali Health Institute, in 2011, at least 52.5 per cent of the youth aged between 14 and 35 years old had consumed one or more substances at least once in their life time.

It further indicated that, due to regular drug use, one young person out of thirteen (7.46 per cent) was alcohol dependent, one young person out of twenty (4.88 per cent) suffered from nicotine dependence while one young person out of forty (2.54 per cent) was dependent on cannabis.

The study showed that young people who get hooked onto substances typically begin this treacherous journey by dabbling with ‘gateway’ substances; such as alcohol and cigarettes, and later progress to more dangerous ones, potentially including cannabis and cocaine.

The impact of substance use, dependence and abuse by young people is staggering in terms of what it can lead to, including physical injury, illegal activity, poor academic performance and partaking in risky sexual behavior – as well as the high cost to parents, family and the surrounding community, the study indicated.

In Rwanda, other than anecdotal accounts, little was previously known about prevalence and types of substances abused and the extent of the problem had not been documented.

This, the study pointed out, made it difficult for government and other stakeholders to put effective prevention and rehabilitation measures in place.

According to statistics from Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), in Ndera Neuropsychiatric Hospital, patients with alcohol and drugs induced mental illness were 989 in 2011, and 1099 in 2012.

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