Parents in Kisenyi a suburb in Kampala City have accused Police and KCCA enforcement teams of soliciting bribes from them in the ongoing operations to get rid of Karamojong and street children off the City streets.
Several operations were carried out today in Katwe, Kisenyi and other City Ghettos where hundreds of street children were bundled in waiting buses to Nakasongola and other centers for rehabilitation leaving parents and caretakers in tears.
Kakuro Betty one of the mothers we met at Kakajjo LC in Kisenyi, says she has failed to trace the whereabouts of her 9 year old daughter Kemirembe Grace who was forcibly picked from the house yet she did not belong to the group of Karamojong girls that are targeted by the swoop.
In the same instance, 80 year old Mary Kyemba says the enforcement teams asked for 100, 000-Shs to spare her granddaughter which she could not raise.
Area Chairperson Godrey Kakande supports the operations in the area but urges for proper scrutiny of the victims to avoid inconveniencing the innocent ones.
The move comes as a fulfilment of the Youth and Children Affairs minister Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi’s statement in Parliament recently when she said that government was in final stages of implementing a strategy to get all children off Kampala streets.
Last month 6 kids died instantly in the City centre after a perimeter wall of Lohana High School collapsed on them in the wee hours of the night from while they were sleeping.
In Uganda more than 15,000 children are believed to be living on the streets across the country.