Locking Up the Poor: New Findings of Arbitrary Detention, Ill-Treatment in "Transit Centers"

(Nairobi) - Rwandan authorities are rounding up poor people and arbitrarily detaining them in "transit centers" across the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The conditions in these centers are harsh and inhuman, and beatings are commonplace. New research indicates that the authorities have made few changes in a center in Gikondo, in the capital, Kigali, despite an earlier Human Rights Watch report on abuses there, and that similar degrading treatment prevails in other transit centers.

Human Rights Watch research in 2016 has found that scores of people, including homeless people, street vendors, street children, and other poor people, are being rounded up off the streets and detained in "transit centers" or "rehabilitation centers" for prolonged periods. Detainees have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and rarely leave their filthy, overcrowded rooms. None of the former detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention.

"The Rwandan government should close these unofficial detention centers and instead provide voluntary vocational training, help, and protection for vulnerable people," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Locking poor people up in harsh and degrading conditions and abusing them isn't going to end their poverty, and it violates both Rwandan and international law."

Following a September 2015 Human Rights Watch report on abuses at the Gikondo transit center, Human Rights Watch interviewed 43 former detainees from Gikondo and three transit centers in other parts of Rwanda: Muhanga (Muhanga district), Mbazi (Huye district), and Mudende (Rubavu district). Most of these interviews took place in 2016.

Contrary to the designations for these centers, none of the people interviewed had "transited" to other facilities after their most recent arrest and most had not been through any "rehabilitation," such as professional training or education, at the centers.

"They correct us by beating us with sticks," one man told Human Rights Watch.

In November, just over a month after Human Rights Watch's report, the Kigali City Council published a new directive regulating the Gikondo center, creating, for the first time, a specific legal framework. The directive contains provisions for improving conditions and granting certain rights, but leaves the door open for continuous arbitrary and lengthy detention.

Many aspects of the directive have not been implemented and the situation in Gikondo has not significantly improved since 2015, Human Rights Watch found. While some former detainees described minor adjustments to the infrastructure and the provision of some activities, the center continued to be overcrowded, with bad conditions. Arrests and detention were arbitrary and unlawful, and police officers beat detainees.

The new findings on the four centers Human Rights Watch researched - out of at least 28 across the country - were remarkably similar. Police or other groups responsible for security rounded up beggars, street vendors, or petty criminals, mostly in urban areas, and locked them up in the overcrowded, dirty transit centers.

Most detainees in these four centers were not allowed to leave their room, except to go to the toilet only twice a day. In most cases, food was no more than one cup of corn a day, and several former detainees complained about the lack of drinking water or the opportunity to wash.

Many said they had been beaten. In Gikondo and Muhanga, almost all those interviewed said they were beaten by police or by other detainees, often with sticks. Two adults detained in the center in Mbazi, close to the town of Huye, in southern Rwanda, said they were beaten when they arrived.

"Every day, we have the 'right' to be beaten twice: in the morning and in the evening," a former detainee from the Mudende transit center told Human Rights Watch. "That is our 'right.'" The situation in Mudende, close to the town of Rubavu, in northwestern Rwanda, was particularly serious, with police officers, military, or other detainees beating detainees daily. As soon as detainees arrived, police officers hit them while forcing them to crawl on the ground to the room where they were to be detained.

Human Rights Watch received information about several people who died during or just after their detention in Mudende, allegedly as a result of a combination of injuries from beatings, poor conditions, and lack of medical care. Human Rights Watch shared information about one such case with the Justice Ministry, which expressed willingness to thoroughly investigate the allegations.

Human Rights Watch spoke to 13 children, ages 10 to 18, who had been detained in Muhanga and Mbazi, between June 2015 and May 2016. Most said they were street children. In Muhanga, children were detained in the same building as adults. In Mbazi, they were held in a separate building with slightly better conditions than the adults, but lacked proper hygiene and access to education. Several former detainees from Mudende and Gikondo said they had also seen children in these centers, ranging from infants held with their mothers to children up to about 18. Several former detainees said children were beaten in Gikondo and Muhanga.

"We are seriously concerned about the detention and ill-treatment of children in transit centers," Bekele said. "This is a negative development, as we were no longer receiving reports of detention of children in Gikondo between mid-2014 and mid-2015. The Rwandan government should order the immediate release of all children detained in transit centers."

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Rwandan justice minister, Johnston Busingye, in March, May, and June 2016, to share its findings and to comment on the Kigali City Council directive. In a written reply on July 5, the Ministry stated that it is continuing to inquire "to make sure that there are no human rights abuses in Rwanda's transit centres" and that it has "been assured that no ill-treatment incident has happened neither in Muhanga nor Huye or Mudende." The Ministry said it would follow up any specific incident reported.

The arbitrary arrest of poor people is part of an unofficial government practice to hide "undesirable" people from view, and contrasts with the Rwandan government's impressive efforts to reduce poverty, Human Rights Watch said. Street vendors, many of them women, have been among the main targets. On May 25, the mayor of Kigali called street vendors "an impediment to cleanliness" and told them to form cooperatives.

Several other government officials promised measures to improve the situation after Theodosie Mahoro, a street vendor, was killed on May 7, in Nyabugogo bus station in Kigali - illustrating the precarious conditions in which they and other poor people operate. Security guards tried to confiscate Mahoro's goods and beat her severely, in front of many witnesses. She died almost immediately. The authorities arrested three security guards suspected of causing her death and promised to investigate.

In 2015 and 2016, the National Commission for Human Rights and members of the Rwandan Parliament confirmed some of Human Rights Watch's findings and endorsed a recommendation for an updated legal framework for all "transit centers."

"New legislation could be a step in the right direction if it prevents arbitrary detention and guarantees detainees' rights to full due process and protection from ill-treatment," Bekele said. "But ultimately, the Rwandan government should close these centers and ensure that abuses are investigated and prosecuted."

For the full report, including detailed findings on the Gikondo directive, conditions in Mudende, Mbazi and Muhanga, the absence of due process, beatings, children in detention, and the public debate in Rwanda, read the original Human Rights Watch publication here.