AFRICANEWS

Children Rights

Kenya

Children in danger

Child offenders aged 15 to 17 in Kenya are treated in a most dehumanising manner, their places of confinement are like maximum security prisons where they are guarded by heavily armed warders.

Standing on a 250 - acre plot, Kabete Approved School epitomises the hardships that children committed to rehabilitation centres for child offenders - commonly known in Kenya as approved schools - have to contend with.

Kabete is the oldest of the institutions - having been established in 1929 by the colonial Government. The main objective behind the establishment of these institutions was to confine young Africans who could be used to provide labour in white settler plantations and other business concerns. Consequently, young Africans who were found without "kipande" (identity card) were arrested and locked up at the institution. It happened that young men refused to take the identity card so that they could evade paying the dreaded hut-tax.

With the advent of the Second World War in 1939, Kabete was converted to a concentration camp and the inmates relocated to Dagoretti approved school. At the end of the war in 1945, Kabete resumed operations and admitted a number of orphans who were left behind as a result of the war. Later, children with criminal tendencies were also committed to the institution. However, it was not until after independence in 1963 that legislation was put in place to govern these institutions. The children and young persons Act of 1963 thus gave the Minister for Home Affairs the mandate to gazette such institutions and spell out how they should be run. Since then, approved schools have remained closed institutions where the media is rarely allowed to set foot. But things seem to be changing. "I decided to open upto the media because these children have a lot of problems which can be solved by people out there", says the Director of children's services Sammy Ole Kwallah. To date there are 11 approved schools and 11 juvenile remand homes.

Although the authorities deny any ill-treatment of children in these institutions, a visit to any of them quickly reminds one of a typical Kenyan prison - a high perimeter fence, over grown grass and in-mates in tattered uniform. The children live and learn in dilapidated buildings and are fed on a poor diet. At Kabete, for example, the buildings are a sight to behold. Most of them are structures left behind by the colonialists and have never seen a new coat of paint or any form of repair. The dormitory floors are full of potholes and most of the beds are broken, forcing inmates to share the few remaining ones. The institutions have in the past been hit by major disease outbreaks but Kwallah says the Government is now on full alert. "We have employed public health officers, nurses and nutritionists to ensure that such outbreaks do not recur," says he. However, conditions at the institutions provide fertile breeding grounds for a disease outbreak. At Kabete, for instance, the flush toilets have never seen water for the last eleven years and the few pit latrines are full and filthy. Add these to the overgrown grass in the compound and you have a sure recipe for disaster.

A visitor to the neighbouring Getathuru Reception Centre is likely to leave dumbfounded. It is at this centre that all children who have passed through the juvenile court are brought before being committed to various approved schools.

The children are barely clothed and are forced to perform all manner of chores-looking after cattle, cooking, digging and harvesting. It is 38 years since the colonialists left but it seems the original objectives of these institutions have not changed. The Getathuru children work in the farms for long periods and use their shirts to carry the harvested maize cobs. At the slightest provocation, they are beaten senseless by their teachers (guardians). Since the offenders are lumped together irrespective of their age groups and nature of the offence committed, the older and hardcore ones are known to sodomise the younger and more vulnerable ones. A former inmate of Kabete approved school who did not want to be named told this writer of his daring escape from the institution ostensibly to evade sodomists. Said he: "Anybody who dared report these cases to the administration would be dismissed as a liar and beaten thoroughly. Escape was the only way out." However, the authorities deny the existence of such ugly practices even today. "I am not aware of those practices. You are telling me now," quips Kwallah. ANPPCAN Regional Director Wambui Njunguna laments at the way children are mixed up irrespective of the nature of offence committed: "We have always advised the government to separate them but so far nothing has happened."

As if the torture and molestation they go through is not enough, children in these institutions do not have enough teachers and learning materials. "The teacher -student ratio in approved schools is the poorest - 1 teacher to 80 students", says Kwallah.

The text books are scarce, forcing teachers to at times buy them out of their own pockets. "Sometimes we have to sacrifice so that these children can continue learning," says Johnstone Keverenge, a teacher at Kabete. The institution - which has both primary and secondary wings - has only 13 teachers - 8 for primary section and 5 for the secondary wing. For an institution which has a student population of 300, the teachers are surely overworked. Early this year, confusion reigned at the institution when the Teachers' Service Commission (TSC) threatened to withdraw teachers and post them elsewhere, claiming the institutions do not offer an education. But the TSC Public Relations Officer Patrick Birgen says that the circular was misunderstood. "We only wanted to recall teachers who are performing non-teaching duties in other ministries and take them back to the classroom", he says. What however, can't be disputed is the poor performance which teacher shortages and inadequate materials have occasioned. The institution only manages to send an average of one student to the university every year.

The situation could have been better if donors could step in. But according to Kwallah, approved schools do not attract donor funding. "They are considered children's prisons and no donor wants to be associated with them. Again, the current thinking on juvenile justice is that children should grow within their communities; observes Kwallah. The few donors who come to the institutions do so anonymously". But a teacher at the institution says that some donors were turned away when the administration asked for a kick back before they could be allowed to give some buildings a facelift. The institution's manager John King'ori vehemently denies this. "We have never asked for kickbacks from anybody. How could we possibly do that," he quips.

The public has a very low opinion of students graduating from these institutions. It is for this reason that Kabete started a secondary wing in 1994 to cater for all children from the institutions who have qualified for secondary education. No secondary school wanted to touch these students since it was believed that they would never cease their criminal tendencies. However, the institutions have succeeded in reforming some of them who are now holding responsible positions in society. A number of them made it to universities and secured jobs thereafter while some of them used the technical skills acquired at the institutions to set up their own businesses. One such proud graduate of these institutions is John Yongo who graduated from Kabete in 1997, after which the Chinese Government sponsored him to pursue an electrical engineer's course in China. Upon his return after four years, he established his own electrical shop and also teaches part-time at the institution. Whereas Yongo is proud to be associated with the institution, other ex-inmates would rather forget their experiences at the institution very fast. One such ex-inmate who spoke to this writer on condition of anonymity says he would never forgive his father who recommended that he be committed to the institution for what he calls "mere truancy". Now a secondary school teacher, he says he cannot go public about his sojourn at the institution because society would start questioning his background. "What would my students, colleagues and boss think of me?" he poses.

But a few inmates are grateful to authorities that sent them to these institutions. Leonardo Ouko, a form four student at Kabete could still be a tout at the Kisumu Bus Park had he not committed a serious offence. He attempted to drive a "matatu" and knocked down a nursery school pupil. By then he had completed class 8 but since his parents were poor he could not join a secondary school and decided to roam the bus park. After the offence, he was promptly arrested, sent to a juvenile court and eventually landed at Kabete where he managed to proceed with secondary education. "The offence I committed was in a way a blessing in disguise. I am happy that I have now managed to reach Form Four and I hope to proceed to the university," he says with an air of confidence. Another Form four candidate, John Mugo, who is an orphan - is very grateful to the police officers who found him loitering in streets of Nanyuki town and arrested him. "If it were not for them, I would not have received an education. At the time of my arrest, I didn't have even a place to call home", he reminisces.

| CONTENTS | AFRICANEWS HOMEPAGE |

AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 21255, Nairobi, Kenya
tel: +254.2.576175 (voice) Fax:- +254.2.577892 (fax-modem)
AFRICANEWS on line is by Koinonia Media Centre