The number of children facing criminal charges has decreased a clear sign that at least there is hope for the young generation.
The Judiciary in Malindi says the cases have reduced from over 100 three years ago to 19 this year.
Authorities attributed the success to strategies laid out to come up with Court users Committees specifically dealing with children’s affairs, the introduction of a children’s court, and a sensitization program aimed at enlightening parents on the need to bring up their children well.
The Revelations were made today when the CUC members led by Malindi Chief Magistrate Dr. Julie Oseko, other the chairperson of the CUC for children Olga Onalo together with other magistrates and members during a tour of the children’s remand home in Malindi.
Oseko told journalists that three years ago the facility had over 100 remandees but they now found only 19 majorities of them from Tanariver, Lamu, and Kilifi which clearly showed that their strategies were fruitful.
Normally when children below 18 years are charged they are taken to children’s remand homes and countrywide there are 14 such facilities Malindi being one of them.
"Today I am so impressed because in this remand home used to carry 100 children and today it has 19 children from the counties of Lamu, Tana river, and Kilifi, to me that is a very marked progress and clearly shows that the kind of strategies that we put in place was in a dire position is improving,'' she said.
Oseko said at the beginning three years ago they noticed that children were not well taken care of and felt that even the government was not properly looking at the children adding that the criminal justice was not doing justice to them.
To address the problem she said they formed a subcommittee of the CUC that specifically deals with matters of children and chaired by a judicial officer together with all stakeholders with interest in child matters airing their views.
This included going to the field to find out what the problems were and coming up with a report to the subcommittee that issued a report to the main CUC.
"I also decided that we have a specific Children's court that deals specifically with matters of children and that ay child that is brought to Malindi law court will be handled by court number 4 chaired by Olga Onalo the Resident Magistrate," she said.
On her part, Onalo said when she came to Malindi in 2019 the number of children brought to court were many and the resources at the remand home were limited that’s why they thought of ways to reduce the numbers.
She said in court they came up with plans such as plea bargaining, diversion, to divert children from the justice system.
"Some cases just require one to say sorry while others require one to apologize and end the case but they found that many opted for court system which was making children to be out of school which was not justified," she said.
Onalo said even those with cases of murder or robbery with violence have tried to ensure that they get a reasonable bond as children are supposed to be treated as children in the justice system.
Further, she said they have made sure cases of children are done within a period of 660 days or at utmost six months to prevent them from staying for a longer period.
She said they will talk to the officers from where a majority of the children in the counties that are at the remand home to ensure that the numbers are reduced.
The magistrate said most of the children being brought to court have come because of psychological problems such as violence, sexual abuse among others.
"if parents followed the right track in the upbringing of these children then we will not have these children in court," he said.
Malindi children’s remand home manager Mbito Mvurya said out of the 19 children at the remand home three were girls and 16 boys.
He said the remand home has a capacity of holding 44 children but at times the number rises above 50.
"It's through the efforts of the court and the Court users committee that the numbers have gone down because their interest is the child and when the number goes up they come up with a decongestions plan," he said.
He said they have now been told that there was a new children’s magistrate at court number five which will help speed up the cases.
Mvurya said there is a need for the facility to be expanded so as to handle the number of children who at times come in large numbers.
*This article was written by Ramadhan Kambi for Uzalendo News. Email: uzalendonews24@gmail.com to submit your story.
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