The Government has earmarked about Rwf200 million for setting up a national rehabilitation service, an independent institution that will help coordinate activities to address the issue of street children and juvenile delinquency.

This was announced at a news conference, on Monday, called to shed light on the resolutions from last Friday’s Cabinet meeting.

It is part of wider national policy against delinquency adopted by the Government, and seeks to harmonise various efforts to control the number of street children and drug abuse among the youth.

Addressing journalists, the State Minister for Social Affairs and Social Protection, Dr Alvera Mukabaramba, explained that both the policy and the institution are geared at helping coordinate various interventions.

"This policy seeks to provide more guidance on how to deal with the rampant problem of street children, through prevention, reintegration; rehabilitation and, among others, coordination of key strategies to curb down street children and Juvenile delinquency,” she said.

There is no exact number of street children documented so far, a challenge the minister attributed to lack of proper coordination.

But the policy implementation will directly be supervised by the proposed institution.

The envisaged institution will also be charged with advising government on how to address the challenge of street children in the next five years.

"Through the Ministry of Public Service and Labour, the design of that institution is being studied and we will soon submit the proposed governing draft law to parliament for consideration,” Mukabaramba said.

Juvenile delinquency data

The Government, Mukabaramba said, has managed to document some of the causes of juvenile delinquency and issues driving children to the streets.

Among the causes, the minister cited poverty in families, death of one or both parents, lack of school fees and materials.

Others include searching for jobs, juvenile delinquency, lack of caretakers, parents’ irresponsibility, child labour, parents’ separation and mistreatment by parents or step-parents.

"All these issues heavily affect the welfare of children, thus the National Rehabilitation Service will help government gather important data, as government devises proper means to remove all children from the streets,” she said.

The Ministry of Youth and ICT found that 80 per cent of youth admitted at Iwawa rehabilitation and vocational training centre were illiterate, 14 per cent of them school dropouts.

Mukabaramba said there is need to reconcile data and information, but also the structure.

For example, while Iwawa rehabilitation and vocational training centre was under the Ministry of Youth and ICT, Gitagata rehabilitation centre was under the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, while some district rehab centres are under Local Government ministry, she added.

Cabinet Affairs minister Stella Ford Mugabo said the institution will put systems in place to prevent delinquency and control the number of street children so that all children are put in school.

"The Government has put serious emphasis on the establishment of the proposed rehabilitation service, whose draft law will now head to Parliament for consideration and we are looking forward to have the institution in place next year,” she said.

The Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion 2012 report found out that out of 1,087 street children who were interviewed in 11 districts, majority of them were male (86.6 per cent) against 13.4 per cent female.

At least 63.6 per cent of those who were interviewed were between 14 and 18 followed by those between six and 13 (26.40 per cent) and 86.8 per cent were not attending school.

City of Kigali then recorded the highest numbers (378 street children) followed by districts in Southern Province with 253 street children, districts in the Western Province with 144, districts in the Northern Province with 121, and districts in the Eastern Province with 109.

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