Africa-Press – Uganda. Crime has in recent years been accompanying urbanization in growing cities in Uganda.
In Mbarara city, this is already posing policing challenges, given the increasing number of street children.
In this city in western Uganda, street children are becoming a major concern to authorities and dwellers who say these have become a security threat.
These say that some residents have been waylaid on their way from ATMs, taxi and bus parks.
“Reports have emerged from the community that some of the grown up street boys are waylaying people on banks at night, in the taxi and bus parks and as the probation office we are concerned,” said Henry Mushabe, the Mbarara City senior probation officer.
The Rwizi region Police spokesperson Samson Kasasira notes that recently about 94 children were arrested in an operation .
“As enforcement officers, we gave the probation office a hand and we were able to collect 94 and 39 are above 18 so they will be screened to check if they have any criminal record,” Kasasira said.
With many seen collecting plastic bottles, some are said to be experiencing mental instability.
Others are always spotted sleeping along streets early morning and mid morning.
Mushabe says that “every time we get some facilitation, we shall always round them up and screen them. Those that want to go back to their respective homes shall be resettled. They can go back to school or do other things in the village.”
Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi the Mbarara city mayor reveals that the issue of handling the street kids is not as easy as it may sound.
“Oftentimes, we have removed them but they keep coming back, some of them are on streets because of the domestic violence in our homes although some recently are said to be from Nakivale refugee settlement.”
According to a senior health worker Dr. Denis Besigye if the government and the city council can establish a school for these children their lives could change for the better.
“Some of those kids are very bright and if government can construct a school, gather them there and feed them well, we can get good engineers, good doctors from them.”
High Street, Buremba road near Fresco supermarket and the taxi and bus park are the major areas where these street kids hang in the night and during day, they are around river Rwizi at Katete Bridge to swim.
Government in 1952 by the Ordinance Act as a boys’ approved a school in Kampiringisa in Mpigi district to cater for boys who needed care and protection, those beyond parental control and delinquents.
The Children Act Cap 59 sub section 96 transformed the school into a National Rehabilitation Centre with one wing declared for girl delinquents.
The centre is to detain, retrain, rehabilitate and integrate the children taken to the centre back into the community. It caters for children between the age of 12 to 18 years. The period of stay at the centre depends on the gravity of the offence, the maximum being three years.
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