Underage girls are increasingly engaging in crime and being put in juvenile detention even though the boy child remain over represented in the crime, the economic survey shows.
The data trends compared over the last three years show that the there is an uptick of number of young girls engaging in crimes, mostly being general stealing.
For example, in 2021, 17 girls were in conflict with the law, 47 in 2022 and 99 in 2023. However, number of boys engaging in crime remain proportionally higher.
For example, in 2021, 389 boys were committed to prison, 880 in 2022 which was the highest of the three years under review, and 319 were committed in 2023.
This is as the survey shows that there is a general declining trend in the number of children getting committed in prison for various crimes.
The total number of children committed to prison in 2023 was 418 with boys accounting for 76.3 per cent of these children.
“About 24.5 per cent of these boys were committed for the offence of stealing by servant and 16 per cent for the offence of assault. On the other hand, about 23.2 per cent of the girls were committed for the offence of general stealing and 22.2 per cent for other offences against persons,” the survey says.
The data show that total number of children at conflict with the law was 406 in 2021, 927 in 2022 and 418 in 2023, showing a declining trend.
The vices the juveniles engage in mostly include assault, stealing, breaking ins, theft of motor vehicle parts among others.
The findings by the survey comes in the wake of calls by government administrators and UN for parents to take care of their children and uphold their rights.
According to Unicef, the Kenyan child is mistreated, starting with parental neglect and manhandling by law enforcers once they get into conflict with the law before they are eventually ushered into the revolving door of the justice system.
“The treatment of street children by police is symptomatic of a larger pattern of mistreatment of Kenyan children within the justice system as a whole,” the UN agency says.
Once arrested, Unicef says, “Kenyan children enter the revolving doors of the juvenile justice system and begin a path that takes them from police lock-up to court, from court to remand detention centres where they may go back and forth between court appearances and remand for months or even years before finally receiving disposition of their cases.”
Also, the UN agency indicts Kenya’s handling of child offenders, complaining that they are not afforded adequate legal assistance, making them admit offences that see them condemned to long jail terms.
Also, while in custody, the children become subject to harassment, abuse, assault and radicalisation that inducts them into hardcore violent crime, it says.
It is for this frustration that “many children plead guilty to crimes they are accused of, simply to avoid spending time in remand detention centres or remand prisons where conditions are known to be particularly harsh.”
“Mostly, these children at conflict with the law are without representation by legal counsel and often without the presence of a parent or legal guardian.
“[On proceedings], the juvenile are subjected to brief hearings on their cases whereby they may be deprived of their liberty and committed for years to juvenile correctional institutions known as approved schools or borstal institutions.”