By KT Reporter
The head of curriculum development at the Uganda Police, John Kamya has said that there are plans to increase the number of hours allocated to child rights-related training in police schools.
In an interview on Thursday, Kamya said that prioritizing training on child rights will equip officers at all levels, with adequate knowledge in handling juvenile offenders.
Kamya notes that, in their current curriculum, training on child rights constitutes meagre modules and is allocated less than eight hours, which deters trainees from adequately appreciating the concept.
He says that, the inability to fully apprehend some child-related concepts while still at the police training school at times forces individual officers to criminalize children, even when there are underlying measures of subjecting them to other forms of discipline.
Kamya further explains that they lack an appropriate training manual and guidelines to be followed by instructors of child rights modules, leaving each one of them to offer tutorials according to their judgements.
Kamya notes that being equipped with knowledge of child rights is a magic bullet towards decongesting not only remand homes and reformatory schools but also prison facilities.
Kamya said that it is costly to maintain juvenile offenders in detention facilities, but rather manageable to incorporate them within the available community discipline systems via school structures, families, and places of worship, among others.
Kamya however, urged local governments to establish both remand homes and reformatory schools, which are key in ensuring juvenile justice under circumstances where the crimes committed are complex and threatening their safety.
He notes that the centralized detention facilities are heavily congested, without enough room to foster rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.
Edward Mutebi, a child rights activist in Jinja City says that he has partnered with organizations to reintegrate 13 children into their families. He says that the juveniles have been able to ably fit within their communities and are currently pursuing their education-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
