By Patrick Mathangani
Nairobi (The East African Standard)
Child offenders locked up at the Meru Prison face worse woes than their adult counterparts.
The children, most of whom are accused of minor offences and are awaiting the conclusion of their cases, have been mingling with hardcore criminals facing capital sentences.
The children freely mix with the older prisoners, some of whom are accused of committing such crimes as murder and robbery with violence. As a result, cases have been reported of children being sodomised by older prisoners.
Esther Waikuru, an official of the Legal Resources Foundation, said confining juvenile offenders with older and hardcore criminals exposes them to abuse and intimidation.
The children also end up becoming criminals, which defeats the purpose of rehabilitation, she said.
“It’s like a school where they graduate from petty offenders to hardcore criminals,” she said.
For years, child offenders in the jail were being held in the same cells with the hardcore prisoners.
Recently, Waikuru and her two colleagues convinced the prison authorities to put the children in separate wards after a 16-year-old boy complained of being sodomised. (more…)
