According to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday, arbitrary detention of homeless children at Rwanda’s Gikondo Transit Center has been characterized by violent beatings, dismal conditions, and other abuse. The report calls on the Rwandan government to close the facility and change its policies of detention for what it calls “deviant behaviors” to conform with international human rights obligations. The report also asks the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to step in with requests for further information and to encourage change.

The CRC was already set to review Rwanda’s compliance with treaty obligations in 2020, and HRW’s report notes that the Committee had already asked Rwanda to close Gikondo in 2013. In 2018 Rwanda submitted a communication to the CRC in which it asserted that Gikondo was “not a detention facility but a Transit Centre” where children were merely screened before being sent home or to rehabilitation programs. The HRW report, however, paints a different picture based on interviews with 30 children detained there in 2019.

“Abuses begin as soon as children are rounded up by police,” the report alleges. “In some cases, children reported being beaten during the arrest, particularly if they tried to escape.” The report details “deplorable and degrading conditions” and quotes from its interviews with many of the detained children. The following, from a 15-year-old boy, describes some of the violence: “I can’t count how many times I was beaten. Even when I was sitting and chatting with friends, the ‘counsellors’ came to hit me. They never hit me less than five times.”

On Tuesday, the CRC issued a press release broadly addressing Rwanda’s human rights progress in recent years as well as its shortcomings. The statement lays out reporting on both the government’s response to allegations about its treatment of street and refugee children the street and the concerns raised about the issue by numerous parties.