Street children: Senators urge govt to take holistic, urgent action

The government should move swiftly to conduct research about the issue of street children in the country and initiate a law that governs transit centres for street children and their rehabilitation. The recommendation was made Wednesday by Senators during a plenary session after analysing the 2014/15 report of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR). Before the lawmakers reached the recommendation, they were briefed about the issue of street children in the country by Senator Gallican Niyongana, the chairperson of the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions. The committee members carried out an analysis of the NCHR’s report, which had cited protection of vulnerable children who end up on streets among areas that need further improvement in line with promoting respect for human rights in Rwanda. “It (street children) is a big issue. Officials at the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion who are in charge of the matter agree that it’s a big problem and they told us that they are preparing an action plan with other stakeholders on how to deal with it,” Niyongana told the House. The issue was extensively discussed at the recent 13th National Leadership Retreat, which resolved that reasons why children end up on streets or drop out of school should be addressed. “It was clear during the retreat that the issue wasn’t given priority in the past. It comes down to whether people understand children’s rights. Parents, teachers and officials need to understand that children need to be protected,” Niyongana added. He said addressing the issue of street children in the country needs to start by everyone acknowledging that they have failed on their obligations to protect children and then seek to understand the causes for the surge in street children. Most senators who attended Wednesday’s session urged the government to carry out more research to better understand the issue of street children in the country and how to address it. “We need more research on this issue. I don’t agree with assumptions that all these children on the streets come from families with deeply entrenched domestic conflicts. We need independent research carried out by independent bodies to show us the real causes of the issue,” said Senator Appolinaire Mushinzimana. Street children at Nyabugogo try to climb a moving truck. (File) Senator Zephyrin Kalimba agreed, saying the matter has become very complex whereby it also involves adults who use children to beg. “The issue should be deeply analysed so that people can know where their problems can be solved instead of becoming street children or homeless,” he said. Come Sinayitutse, a Children Rights Protection and Promotion Officer at the National Commission for Children, told The New Times that the typical Rwandan street child is anyone below eighteen who lives on the street. Such children are normally rounded up by law enforcement agencies and sent to transit centres across the country where they undergo rehabilitation for three to six months and then reunited with their parents. Though Sinayitutse says that statistics of street children in the country may not be readily available given the complicated nature of the issue, at least a thousand such children have been sent to transit centres across the country every year in the last three years. “We have measures to take children off the streets but there is also a plan to do a census in order to better design ways to help them,” he said. Sinayitutse said that, currently, there are about 23 transit centres for street children in the country, including five centres owned by the government and 18 owned by private organisations. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Street children: Senators urge govt to take holistic, urgent action