Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Rwanda.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Rwanda. Some of these
links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated
or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity
or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how
some manage to leave the street.
Perhaps your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the
public and how they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each
other. Would you like to write about
market children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Street Children, A
Waiting Disaster Richard Oundo, The New Times, Kigali, January 8, 2007 This article has
been archived by World Street Children News and may possibly still be
accessible [here] [accessed 15 July
2011] streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/rwanda-street-children-a-waiting-disaster/ [accessed 1 January
2017] Kigali is peaceful
today because the street children are still children. Today they are begging,
practically requesting their donors to willingly handover the loose change in
their possession. When the sense of frustration develops, they may use
‘reasonable force’ so to say in police speak. We all know the consequences of
this action, when someone coerces you into parting with what is legally
yours. Rwanda: Street
Children May Be a Future Menace Ambrose Gahene, The New Times, Kigali, 23 May 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/rwanda-street-children-may-be-a-future-menace/ [accessed 1 January
2017] Many factors
contribute to the emergence of street children. The major factor is that
these are children born as a result of prostitution, where the mother does
not know the legitimate father of the child. When the child grows to about five years and
fails to be provided with the necessary love from parents, the kid will
resort to living on street verandas or under sewage trenches. Other children
find their way into the streets as a result of mistreatment from parents.
These types are always furious and merciless to other street kids because
they have been subjected to a brutal life. To them, everybody they meet is
likened to their harsh parents. Some
other children are sent to the streets to beg for money by their parents. The Question of
Street Kids in Rwanda The International
Child and Youth Care Network CYC-NET, 26 April 2005 www.cyc-net.org/features/ft-streetkids2.html [accessed 15 July
2011] PERCEPTION VERSUS
FACTS
- The typical depiction of street children by the media invariably connects
them with physical deprivation, inadequate nutrition and hygiene and, the
skirting of the law. It also portrays children as being vulnerable to adult
(particularly male) exploitation and to environmental hazards. These and other
negative traits are supposedly evidenced by the street child's poor health,
inadequate clothing and alienation that percolates down to feelings of
personal insecurity, resulting to emotional disabilities and destructive behaviour. All this reflects the fact that these children
spend much of their time away from adult support. Yet, empirical evidence is
quite different. Any street child earns, on average, as much as the adults in
their vicinity and often up to one and a half times the minimum wage of most
of these adults. For example, in Gaborone, Botswana, where a maid usually
earns $20 for eight hours of work, few street children would spend 15 minutes
to clean a car for less than $5. Their income, therefore, is generally
sufficient to meet the cost of decent and nutrition meals. Indeed, for many,
food is far less plentiful at home, if available at all. For this reason,
too, a good outfit is usually not beyond their means, although they often
ignore middle-class views of decency in preference for worn-out clothes, or,
if engaged in begging, then they wear tattered clothing and wash only weekly,
to increase their earning potential. In the same vein,
research regularly shows that most street children are predominantly healthy
and that when they are ill, they are usually looked after by a relative.
Thus, many of them resort to self medication purchased from traditional drug
sellers or over-the counter, which is a phenomenon common in the under
developed world. . ***
ARCHIVES *** Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or download PDF at www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] RWANDA UNLAWFUL DETENTION
AND ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES - Throughout the year, hundreds of men, women, and children—many
of them street children, commercial sex workers, or street hawkers—were
detained unlawfully, without charge or trial, in very poor conditions in an
unrecognized detention center commonly known as Kwa Kabuga, in the Gikondo area of Kigali. Many were beaten by police, or by
other detainees in the presence of police. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor
Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/rwanda.htm [accessed 20
December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - There are an estimated 7,000 street children in
Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, and in provincial capitals who work as porters
and garbage collectors or sell small items such as cigarettes and candy. Such children are at significant risk of
commercial sexual exploitation, such as the exchange of sex for services
(e.g. food or protection). A study by
the Ministry of Labor and UNICEF estimated that 2,140 children are engaged in
prostitution in urban areas. Human
Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61587.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] CHILDREN
–
According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the net primary school
enrolment/attendance ratio was 75 percent. Of the children who entered the
first grade, 47 percent reached the fifth grade, and the secondary school
attendance ratio was 5 percent There were
approximately six thousand street children throughout the country. Local
authorities rounded up street children and placed them in foster homes or
government-run facilities. The Gitagata Center housed approximately 400
children, the majority of whom were rounded up by authorities in 2003. The
government supported a "childcare institution" in each of the 12
provinces that served as safe houses for street children, providing shelter
and basic needs. Number of Street
Children in Kayonza On the Decline Stephen Rwembeho, The New Times, Kigali, Sept. 28, 2010 allafrica.com/stories/201009280170.html [partially accessed
15 July 2011 - access restricted] www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2010-09-28/24433/ [accessed 1 January
2017] Talking to The New
Times, yesterday, the coordinator of SACCA, Valentine Mukamuyenzi,
explained that the NGO has developed a successful programme
of rehabilitating and taking the children back to school. She disclosed that over 200 former street
children have so far been rehabilitated. "We prepare them to pass the
entrance exams for various grades. We help pay their registration fees,
uniforms, scholastic materials, feed them and accommodate them," she
said. "Of course
some children still reappear on the streets, but on average the challenge was
reduced. Former street kids are now doing well in school," he said. "I lived like
an animal. Ate in rubbish pits and slept in the open. I was in a state of
hopelessness I never thought of the future for I never had the present. But
now the sky will be the limit on my way to being a doctor," he said Residents Decry
Increased Theft at Nyabugogo Bridge Lillian Nakayima, The New Times, Kigali, 15 March 2009 allafrica.com/stories/200903160495.html [partially accessed 15
July 2011 - access restricted] "They start
with pick pocketing after which they resort to off loading
cars" Gakuba narrates. He adds that women have been robbed of
money, jewellery, mobile phones and other things.
At times it turns into a battle when people try to resist being robbed. "This gang is well equipped with
razor blades and knives. People no longer resist because they prefer their
lives to material things," he says.
Nyabugogo dwellers report seeing these
street children with drugs, this has alarmed the residents' security.
According to them, these thugs are between the ages of thirteen and twenty. Tougher Approach
Needed for Street Children School The New Times,
Kigali, 12 June 2008 allafrica.com/stories/200806120250.html [partially accessed
15 July 2011 - access restricted] www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2008-06-11/4125/ [accessed 1 January
2017] School of
Champions, a newly established rehabilitation and vocational training
facility for former street children situated in Rwamagana,
is already experiencing problems. Understandably, the
challenges the school is faced with in just a space of two weeks are related
to indiscipline. It is not even a month after starting and the adapted kids
are capable of finding their way out to look for drugs. A journalist who caught up with the lads
and inquired into their short experience was largely greeted by lamentation.
They complained bitterly of being underfed, confessing their wish to return
to the foster homes. The school administration
refutes the children's allegations of inadequate food, pointing to their
complicated past life as a gripping negative influence they will take time to
be separated from. The director of the
school also observed that with the children still able to access drugs,
crying for more food is expected. Sealing the
entrances and exits to control unwanted movement of children and commodities
is a thing the administration may want to consider. The school may also take
a less defensive position and delve into the alleged matters of insufficient
food quantities. Rwanda: 300 Street
Kids Attend "Ingando"] Godfrey Ntagungira, The New Times, Kigali, 11 May 2008 allafrica.com/stories/200805120709.html [partially accessed
15 July 2011 - access restricted] www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2008-05-11/46299/ [accessed 1 January
2017] The Ministry of
Gender and Family Promotion in the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday
picked up 330 kids from Kigali streets and enrolled them on a two-week
rehabilitation solidarity camp (ingando). "At the end of
the solidarity camp, the ministry will identify those who can be taken back
to primary or technical schools and others will get the opportunity join
catch-up classes for a while before sitting for primary leaving examinations,"
she noted. Rwanda: ICT to
Attract Street Children to Schools James Buyinza, The New Times, Kacyiru,
12 November 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/rwanda-ict-to-attract-street-children-to-schools/ [accessed 1 January
2017] Mujawamariya said that the
ministry plans to put up many computer kiosks in all primary schools located
in Kigali slum areas, where the number of street children is high to enable
them exploit the opportunity they had missed. The computer
packages for these children will include personal hygiene, sensitisation of masses about the dangers of HIV/Aids and
prevention, ways of controlling malaria and games. Rwanda: From Street
Child to Professional Marketer and Music Instructor Florence Mutesi, The New Times, Kigali, 19 October 2007 [accessed 1 January
2017] CAN YOU TELL ME HOW
YOU ENDED UP ON THE STREET? - I left home in 1993, I was 12-years-old,
in primary 5. I left with my brother who was ten. We stayed on the street for
4 years. What drove us to the street was mistreatment at home. Things were ok for us before, our
stepmother treated us well, but then things suddenly changed negatively. She
started denying us food, falsely accusing us of doing bad things, and we
could be beaten without reason. In the
morning, we could have breakfast when dad was there, but at lunch time not
eating was a sure deal because in most cases, dad was not there. Supper
depended on the presence of dad. For a
while we could only eat if our dad was there. In most cases dad did not know
what was happening to us Dad was also a church person, thus absent most of
the time. We suffered a lot. I could
not cope with my mum, as a result I sought somewhere I could find love and
peace, and the only option was the street, where I could stay with fellow
children. My brother and I made a decision at once and left home to live on
the street. Rwanda: Mrs Kagame Launches Campaign
Against Child Abuse Edwin Musoni, The New Times, Kigali, 15 August 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/08/15/rwanda-mrs-kagame-launches-campaign-against-child-abuse/ [accessed 1 January
2017] Deputy Commissioner
General of Police Mary Gahonzire called for help
for street children, saying; "We have a second generation on the
streets; street children have given birth to other children who are also on
the streets now and are giving birth at a tender age. We need to protect
these children. Local photographer
returning to Rwanda Audrey Stanton, The
Register Herald, March 24, 2007 www.register-herald.com/local/x519078333/Local-photographer-returning-to-Rwanda [accessed 15 July
2011] [accessed 1 January
2017] The pictures he has
taken during his last two visits to Rwanda tell two stories simultaneously:
one of hardship and pain, and yet another of hope. His subjects there are the children who
sleep on heaps of garbage and spend their days on the street. Many of them
are the orphans left behind after extremist militia groups killed some
800,000 people in a three-month period in 1994. Help Widows As You
Discourage Begging Immaculate Chaka,
The New Times, Kigali, January 12, 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/rwanda-help-widows-as-you-discourage-begging/ [accessed 2 January
2017] Most of the widows
in Rwanda live a desperate life. Poverty is not only in terms of money but
also basic needs like housing, food, education and clothing’s extra. It is due to poverty that most widows send
their children to beg on streets or leave their families and go to stay on
the streets as street children. Mukandahiro Anastasia told The
New times that some time back she was depending to the pottery, were she
could get some little money to feed the family but since the buying of the
swamps were they used to collect clay from, buying soap and other basic needs
became a great deal to handle. Street Children -
Turn Not a Blind Eye Stephen Buckingham,
The New Times, Kigali, October 29, 2006 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/rwanda-street-children-turn-not-a-blind-eye/ [accessed 2 January
2017] Kigali has changed
a great deal in the ensuing years, but some things never change. There are
fewer street boys in the centre of town, but they have dispersed to the
various shopping centres outside. Kisimenti is a favourite pitch
for many of them and you cannot go to Ndoli’s, the
bank or the pharmacies there without hearing ‘cent francs pour manger’.
There, by your side is the street boy, ‘booty bag’ or bottle of glue in hand,
asking for money which he certainly will not spend on food. Rwanda: Street
Children Get Skills James Tasamba, The New Times, Kigali, October 20, 2006 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/rwanda-street-children-get-skills/ [accessed 2 January
2017] About forty former
street children picked from Ruhengeri town received certificates and tools on
Wednesday October 18, after completing training in different technical
activities. The children completed
training in tailoring, carpentry, welding, and motor mechanics courtesy of
caritas Ruhengeri dioceses. Street Children to
Get Training Centre Paul Ntambara, The New Times, Kigali, July 20, 2006 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/street-children-to-get-training-centre/ [accessed 2 January
2017] Street children will
soon have an opportunity to gain vital training skills to enable them earn a
living once a school called ‘Centre for Champions’ is completed. ‘We decided to call
this centre one for champions because we are positive thinkers. We want it to
be a centre for excellence. We want these street children to discover their
purpose in life through this centre, pursue it, achieve it and excel in it,’ Rutayisire said. Kids detained
illegally Reuters, Kigali,
2006-05-15 www.news24.com/Africa/News/Kids-detained-illegally-HRW-20060515 [accessed 16 July
2011] The HRW said that
since 2005, city officials in Kigali had been rounding up children and youths
living on the street and holding them - as "vagrants" under
colonial-era laws - in a former warehouse.
Detainees spend weeks or months there with inadequate food, water and
medical care, and are forced to sleep on the floor, reported HRW in a paper
entitled "Swept away: street children illegally detained in
Kigali". Those held are rarely
charged. Swept away: street
children illegally detained in Kigali [PDF] Human Rights Watch,
May 2006 -- This 13-page background briefing paper documents life at a
detention center in Kigali based on the testimony of children hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/rwanda0506/rwanda0506.pdf [accessed 16 July
2011] SUMMARY - The authorities of
Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, work hard to present the city in the best
possible light, knowing that many international visitors see little beyond
the city limits. As part of this
effort, in 1997 the authorities began to regularly sweep the city to clear
streets and public spaces of what they regard as undesirable persons, such as
street children, beggars, street vendors and sex workers. In the early years
street children were sent to reception centers far from the capital, but for
at least the last year children have been held at an unofficial detention
center located in a neighborhood of Kigali called Gikondo.
Although only a short distance from the luxury hotels that cater to
international visitors, the center, like the children and other persons it confines,
is not seen by foreign guests. Held at the Gikondo center in overcrowded buildings, the hundreds of
detainees suffer from lack of adequate food, water, and medical care.
Children are subject to abuse from adults detained in the same buildings. Police
officers claimed that detainees should spend no more than three days at the
center, but some, including children, have been held there for weeks or
months. One thirteen-year-old boy died there on April 16, 2006, suffering
from severe malnutrition; on the same day a young woman detainee, also
reportedly malnourished, suffered a miscarriage and was hospitalized. Authorities hold
the detainees as “vagrants” under colonial-era regulations but rarely charge
them formally, bring them to court, or afford them the due process rights
guaranteed under the Rwandan constitution and international conventions by
which Rwanda is bound. The detention in
particular of children in miserable conditions violates provisions of the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter
on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child, to which Rwanda is a party, as
well as the Rwandan law on the Rights and Protection of the Child Against
Violence. Sexual Harassment:
A young woman s tale Nasra Bishumba,
News from Africa, December 2003 www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_2615.html [accessed 16 July
2011] allafrica.com/stories/200605110378.html [partially accessed
2 January 2017] Sometimes they (other
street kids) force us to do dirty sexual things that they have watched in
blue movies. And because they are stronger, there is nothing that you can do.
It s hard to tell anybody. It s shaming and after all, nobody will believe
you she said Somebody can easily
surface from nowhere and rape you or beat you up and carry away your blanket.
Even those we help in their daily chores like sweeping their shops sometimes
refuse to pay us because they know nobody will believe us when we report the
cases, she said sadly. Peace Body Supports
1,160 Street Kids Eleneus Akanga,
The New Times, Kigali, December 30, 2005 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2005/12/30/peace-body-supports-1160-street-kids/ [accessed 2 January
2017] The Foundation for
Peace, Sports and Culture (SCPF) that operates in the Great Lakes region has
sent to school 1,160 former street children and vulnerable kids. SCPF has
fully sponsored 40 of the children, according to Dr. Louis Munyakazi, the foundation president who was addressing a
press conference on their activities and road map held at the foundation’s
main offices in Kigali. Orphans of the Genocide Albert P'Rayan, Worldpress.org, Kigali, February 1, 2002 www.worldpress.org/Africa/355.cfm [accessed 16 July
2011] "I'm quite used
to my street life. During the daytime I spend my time in the market. I help
people carry their vegetable bags and get some money and at nights I sleep in
front of any shop on the street. It is hard. The street is not a secure place
for girls like me. We're hungry, we have no shelter, anybody can abuse us
however they like. Nobody says anything." Lasting Wounds:
Consequences of Genocide and War for Rwanda's Children Human Rights Watch
Report, March 2003 -- Vol. 15, No. 5 (A) www.hrw.org/reports/2003/rwanda0403/rwanda0403-07.htm [accessed 16 July
2011] VII. CHILDREN ON THE
STREETS
- Few street children had had more than three years primary education. Many
were separated from their parents during or in the aftermath of the genocide
and had lived in centers for unaccompanied minors. Family problems including
abuse, alcoholism, or stepparents who chased them out of the house fearing
they would claim property destined for their half-siblings were also
important factors driving children to the streets. Others simply attempted to
escape the extreme poverty in which they lived on the hills, hoping to find
work in town. LIFE ON THE STREETS - A 2002 survey by
Johns Hopkins University on sexual activity among street children [in Kigali,
Rwanda] underscored that street children are extremely vulnerable to sexual
abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. More than half of the boys
interviewed and more than three quarters of the girls, including 35 percent
of those under ten, admitted they were sexually active. Sixty-three percent
of the boys said they had forced a girl to have sex with them. Ninety-three
percent of the girls reported having been raped. SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST
STREET GIRLS
- While less numerous than street boys, girls living on the streets
experience most of the same problems as boys and, in addition, are frequently
subjected to sexual violence. A local NGO recently reported that 80 percent
of street girls have been victims of rape, while another study puts the
figure as high as 93 percent. One study found that girls who turn to the
streets are generally younger than street boys. Street girls are often
invisible because they do not travel around in gangs as boys do, staying
generally on their own or in small groups. Information about
Street Children - Rwanda [DOC] This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for Francophone Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 2-5 June 2004, Senegal At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 16 July
2011] A study by UNICEF
Kigali in 2002 suggested that there were around 7,000 street children in
Rwanda, of whom 3,000 were concentrated in Kigali. 42% of them were reported
as sleeping on the streets, with 50% of them aged between 15 and 18. Accidental
separation from their family was a relatively common cause, with 25-35%
suggesting that they had simply ‘lost’ their mother and father. UNICEF, Government
Launch Sensitization Drive On Street Children UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks IRIN, Nairobi , 5 November 2001 www.irinnews.org/report/28064/rwanda-unicef-government-launch-sensitisation-drive-on-street-children [accessed 10 March
2015] The UN agency
reported in a document on the sensitization program, that authorities and the
public consider street children as "delinquents, thieves, deviants, and
evil people who must be fought by all means and not protected". Mindful
of their social marginalisation, UNICEF added, the
children Are "distrustful of people and are not always easy to
approach". Rwanda to Set up
Vocational Training Project for Street Children Xinhua News Agency,
Nairobi, 2001.07.27 news.xinhuanet.com/english/20010727/434251.htm [accessed 16 July
2011] Children will be
taught handcrafts, like construction, woodwork, catering, plumbing and so
on. She said the already trained
children will be sent back to their localities to provide useful services to
the people. Street Children Youth With a Mission
YWAM Rwanda www.ywamconnect.com/sites/ywamrwanda/street [accessed 16 July
2011] Although no
official statistics have been collated, it is estimated by various NGO’s that
there are between 5,000 and 10,000 children who live on the streets in
Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. Most of these do not actually sleep on the streets
at nighttime, because there is a high risk that they will be killed, or
beaten. Many live in underground big pipes, or share a small mud hut with
some older street children. Murambi Centre For Street
Children – Ginkongoro War Child At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 16 July
2011] Forty street
children from Ginkongoro district, Rwanda have spent the last three years
living on the streets, having lost their parents. Michel (14 years old) and
Boniface (18 years old) believe both parents to be dead Street children
rounded up in Rwanda BBC World Service,
17 January 1998 pangaea.org/street_children/africa/rwanda.htm [accessed 16 July
2011] Authorities in the
southern Rwandan town of Butare have rounded up more than nine hundred
people, most of them street children. Rwanda
struggles with street children Robert Walker, BBC,
Kigali, 3 February, 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3452881.stm [accessed 16 July
2011] Rwandan authorities
have come under fire for forcibly rounding up hundreds of street children in
the capital, Kigali, ahead of an African leaders summit. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - Rwanda",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Rwanda.htm, [accessed <date>] |
