The Minister for Gender and Family Promotion, Esperance Nyirasafari, has called for more efforts towards safeguarding children’s rights in Rubavu District.

During her two-day visit to the area, starting Thursday, the minister toured, among others, the border post with DR Congo around which several unaccompanied children are common.

The children are normally left around the border area by their mothers to cross to DR Congo to conduct business, exposing them to all sorts of hazards.

The border post, commonly known as Petite Barriere, is one of the busiest borders in East Africa and it is used by over 45,000 people on a day, 90 per cent of them women.

Migration officials noted that 74%of the women who cross the border are mostly business women who carryout informal trade and many of these either leave their children around the border area so as to go and carry out their businesses.

This, they said, has become a major problem for the border managers.

According to Scola Uwamahoro, one of these women, most choose to leave their children behind because of the prohibitive levies required for a child’s travel document, which costs Rwf10,000.

She added that the procedures to acquire this document are also lengthy and require a lot of time.

However, Minister Nyirasafari said that a solution has to be found to ensure these children’s rights are protected.

"We must have solutions to these issues because these children, some of them below 5, are exposed to all sorts of dangers, including hunger,” she said.

Officials added that even those that cross the border with their mothers are also under a high risk of contracting diseases and are also exposed to insecurity since there are cases of robbery across the border and at times fights break up between Rwandan and Congolese traders.

Nyirasafari encouraged the businesswomen at the border to operate in cooperatives so as to reduce the number of women who have to cross into DR Congo on daily basis.

She said that, in such case, those that stay behind can take care of their colleagues’ children.

The minister also added that an Early Childhood Development Centre will be set up at the border where mothers can leave their children.

The delegation visited a site on which a cross-border market will be built soon so as to bring together traders from both countries under one roof.

Meanwhile, the minister also visited Isange One Stop Centre at Gisenyi Hospital where children, women and men that have suffered any form of sexual violence receive medical attention, counseling, legal advice.

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