Human Rights Watch has accused Rwanda of illegally detaining and abusing street children at a holding centre in the capital, Kigali.
The rights group said these children are detained at the Gikondo Transit Centre, and abused.
Human Rights Watch said it has spoken to 30 children who confirmed these claims.
But Rwanda has said the centre being reported about is operated according to law.
Rwanda’s justice minister, Johnston Busingye, is quoted by Reuters as saying that the centre trains young people in skills including carpentry and welding and rehabilitates them from life on the streets.
“These centres are run in full compliance with law,” he said.
Gikondo Transit Centre started operating in 2005 but Rwanda adopted a law in 2017 making it a rehabilitation centre for people including minors exhibiting “deviant” behaviour.
Human Rights Watch however said the government is arbitrarily arresting and holding people there, and subjecting them to ill treatment.
Reuters quoted Nelly Nshutinamagara, 12, who lives on the streets of Kigali, as saying that he was arrested by police at night, taken to Gikondo, and beaten with batons.
“They treat us badly by using batons…when one child makes a mistake, they beat us all,” he said after he was released earlier this month.
Human Rights Watch is asking the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, to call for the immediate closure of the centre.
“Rwandan authorities claim they are rehabilitating street children,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“But instead, they are locking them up in inhuman and degrading conditions, without due process, and exposing them to beatings and abuse.”
Rwanda has largely been praised for its transformation efforts and recovering from the 1994 genocide, when extremists from the Hutu ethnic majority killed an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
But President Paul Kagame has also been accused by rights groups of abuses, a suppressing political opponents and the media.
Source: Africafeeds.com
