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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.

In 2003 the Rwandan government adopted a National Policy for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children, which includes a section on street children. Under this policy, Rwandan authorities undertook to consult with all stakeholders on relevant issues, but they have not raised the existence of the Gikondo detention center with such important partners as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The first that one UNICEF  child protection officer had heard of the existence of the center was when a Human Rights Watch researcher informed her in late April 2006.   

The current city administration found the Gikondo center in operation when it took office in January 2006. When asked about the Gikondo center, a vice-mayor of Kigali told a Human Rights Watch researcher that the city intended to close the facility.¹ City authorities should act immediately upon this intention and should ensure that, pending closure and afterwards, detainees receive needed legal, social, and medical assistance.