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Juvenile Injustice: Police Abuse and Detention of Street Children in Kenya -- Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project

NCJ Number
166806
Date Published
1997
Length
162 pages
Annotation
Because an estimated 40,000 street children in Kenya face many hardships and dangers in their daily lives, Human Rights Watch undertook a project in 1996 in which more than 60 children in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa were interviewed.
Abstract
Most interviews with children were conducted on the streets or in shelters for street children. In some cases, interviews were conducted in correctional or remand institutions where children were confined. Additionally, interviews were conducted with members of nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists who worked with street children in Kenya. The project found that several socioeconomic factors fueled the rising presence of street children, including but not limited to rapid urbanization, the breakdown of traditional family support structures, female single-parent households, inability of parents to pay for public education, and displacement of large numbers of people in urban slum clearance operations. Some street children had parents or family members in nearby slum areas or in faraway villages with whom they maintained some contact. Others were abandoned or orphaned, while some left their families and homes of their own accord. Kenyan law enforcement officials demonstrated brutal attitudes toward street children and exploited them with impunity. Children reported they were often harassed and beaten by police officers, and street girls reported being sexually propositioned. Police roundups were conducted with brute force and with little regard for children's welfare. Despite the requirement that children's cases be heard in special juvenile courts, such cases were often tried in regular courts along with adult cases where children did not have special protections afforded juveniles under Kenyan law. Pending final adjudication and case disposition, street children were committed by courts to temporary detention in remand institutions where conditions were overcrowded and unsanitary. From remand, some children were finally committed by courts to approved schools. The treatment of street children by Kenyan police officers, procedures used to confine children to correctional institutions, and conditions in these institutions are detailed. The project concludes the Kenyan government is not adequately addressing the social and economic hardships that lead children to the streets. Recommendations to improve the treatment of street children in Kenya are offered. Appendixes contain supplemental information on United Nations conventions, standards, and principles related to juvenile justice. 302 footnotes

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