Locations - Nairobi streetkids

(New York, June 16, 1997) --Today, on the Day of the African Child, over 40,000 Kenyan children are living on the streets. These children face harassment and abuse from the police and within the juvenile justice system simply because they are homeless. In Juvenile Injustice: Police Abuse and Detention of Street Children in Kenya, released today, Human Rights Watch charges Kenyan law enforcement officials with physical abuse, monetary extortion and sexual abuse of street children. Human Rights Watch also charges the Kenyan government with failure to hold law enforcement personnel accountable for abuses committed against street children. After interviews with over sixty children, Human Rights Watch details their all-too-frequent route from street to police station lockup, from lockup to court, from court to detention in remand institutions, and finally from remand to confinement in correctional institutions. Street children in Kenya are subject to frequent arrest and roundups simply because they are homeless. Although police and government officials maintain that children are rounded up for the purposes of reuniting them with their families or placing them in institutions for their care, the manner in which the children are treated, both by police and within institutions, belies such intentions; these children are arrested and dealt with as criminals. They are charged with "vagrancy," a criminal offense under Kenyan law. Lois Whitman, director of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, said, "the notion that the government is helping these children by locking them up in jail cells or remand prisons, under horrible conditions, where they are mixed with serious criminal offenders is preposterous. These children are processed through courts without legal representation or any type of assistance, and end up in correctional facilities that are downright Dickensian."

Street children report being harassed and beaten by police on the streets, and paying bribes in order to avoid arrest. Street girls in Nairobi reported being sexually propositioned or even raped by police in order to avoid arrest or to be released from custody. Violence against street children has also risen to a deadly level in recent years; during Human Rights Watch's factfinding mission to Kenya in September 1996, an unarmed street boy was allegedly shot and killed by a police reserve officer in Uhuru Park in Nairobi. "Despite the evidence that the use of deadly force was wholly unwarranted, to our knowledge no charges or even disciplinary proceedings have been brought against the officer," commented YodonThonden, staff attorney for Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, and author of the report. Once arrested, street children are held in deplorable conditions in crowded police station cells, often without toilets or bedding, with little food, and inadequate supplies of water. They are almost always mixed with adults, and are frequently beaten by police in the station. Despite Kenyan legal requirements that a person arrested without a warrant be brought before a magistrate without delay (ordinarily within twenty-four hours), street children stay in lockups for periods extending from several days to weeks without review of the legality of their detention by judicial authorities. They are then released back onto the streets or are brought to court.

If brought to court, children are processed through the Kenyan juvenile justice system, where they pass back and forth between remand detention centers and court before a final disposition is reached in their cases. Children's cases are supposed to be heard in special juvenile courts, established under the Children and Young Persons Act, whose jurisdiction extends to both criminal matters and to non-criminal "protection or discipline" matters. However, street children are frequently tried in regular courts as adults, without the special protections provided to children under Kenyan law. Whether in regular courts or in juvenile courts, however, proceedings are rushed and do not allow children fair opportunities to be heard. The report reveals that none of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed were ever represented by legal or other counsel, and only a few said that a parent or guardian was present at the proceedings. Confused and frightened in court, children often do not understand the nature of the legal proceedings or the dispositions of their cases. Translation is not always available for children who need it. Pending final adjudication and disposition of their cases, street children are committed by courts to temporary detention in remand institutions to juvenile remand homes (for children fifteen years old and younger) or to adult remand prisons (for children at least fourteen years old) where they may languish for indefinite periods of time, usually between several weeks and several months, and sometimes years. There are no limits under Kenyan law on the amount of time that a person can be detained in a remand institution. In remand centers, there are no educational or recreational activities for children whatsoever most of their time is spent shut into their dorms.

Conditions were particularly disturbing in adult remand prisons. In addition to severe overcrowding, boys said they endured extreme physical abuse, usually by older inmates and sometimes by prison guards. Sexual harassment by inmates was also reported, along with failure of guards to protect children from inmate abuse. From remand, children may be committed by courts to approved schools (if the child is fifteen years old or younger), borstal institutions (for boys at least fifteen years old) or adult prisons (if the child is at least fourteen years old). Although a wide range of alternatives to custodial treatment are provided for under the Children and Young Persons Act, magistrates still tend to overuse institutionalization as a remedial measure for street children. In correctional institutions, children complained of corporal punishment by staff, and physical abuse by other boys. In approved schools (under the administration of the Children's Department) canings, deprivation of home leave, and labor are used as punishments. Punishments in borstal institutions (under the administration of the Prisons Department) were found to be particularly cruel boys reported the use of hard labor (digging), solitary confinement in dark and wet isolation rooms, reductions in diet, and public floggings.

The Kenyan government is currently in the process of considering much needed reform of a number of laws relevant to street children, including the Children and Young Persons Act. Towards this end, Human Rights Watch makes detailed recommendations in the report to the Kenyan government, and specifically to the attorney general, for reform of existing law and practice.

Particularly, Human Rights Watch urges the Kenyan government to:

• Amend or repeal the Vagrancy Act so that being "without fixed abode" is no longer a criminal offense for street children, and not grounds for arrest.
• Ensure that the Children Bill (the bill which seeks to reform and replace the Children and Young Persons Act) clearly separates criminal from protection cases for children, and that children receive all due process protections required by international law when deprivation of liberty is at issue.
• Eliminate from existing laws and regulations all provisions authorizing corporal punishment, reduction in diet, and solitary confinement as punishment for children.
• Ensure that those who work with children are specially educated and trained on how to handle children's cases. Law enforcement personnel, the judiciary (and officers associated with juvenile court proceedings, children's officers and probation officers), and staff at correctional institutions should be sensitized to the special needs and rights of children.
• All relevant government departments (including the Police Department, the Children's Department, the Prisons Department, and the Attorney General's Office) should initiate prompt investigations into allegations of abuse of children by police and institutional staff, and should undertake disciplinary or criminal proceedings where appropriate, to ensure accountability of guards and police for their actions.

Copies of this report are available from the Publications Department, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017-6104 for $18.00 (domestic shipping) and $22.50 (international shipping). Visa and Mastercard accepted.

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It is supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly. The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director; Robert Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Wilder Tayler, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone, counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative. Robert L. Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. Its Africa division was established in 1988 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter Takirambudde is the executive director; Janet Fleischman is the Washington director; Suliman Ali Baldo is the senior researcher; Alex Vines is the research associate; Bronwen Manby and Binaifer Nowrojee are counsels; Ariana Pearlroth and Juliet Wilson are associates; and Alison DesForges is a consultant. William Carmichael is the chair of the advisory committee and Alice Brown is the vice chair. Its Children's Rights Project was established in 1994 to monitor and promote the human rights of children around the world. Lois Whitman is the director; Yodon Thonden is counsel; and Rosa Ehrenreich, Arvind Ganesan, and Lee Tucker are consultants. Jane Green Schaller is chair of the advisory committee.

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