More than 60 children have been rescued from scrap trade in Athi River District, within Machakos County and rehabilitated at Bondeni Rescue Centre.
This was disclosed by the center’s director, Florence Gitau, who said most of the children were found in slums within the town, while others drawn from various streets in Machakos and Makueni Counties.
Gitau said majority of the rehabilitated children are complete orphans, while others lived either with their elderly grandmothers and irresponsible parents.
'”These children are very vulnerable, most of them are complete orphans while the rest from humble backgrounds hence cannot afford simple basic needs to earn livelihoods,” said Gitau.
The director, who addressed the press at the centre on Wednesday, disclosed that they took the children through various psychosocial counseling to change their attitudes and forget about the trade.
She also said that the children resorted to the trade because of poverty, the situation that denied them their fundamental rights such as education, security, good health and proper accommodation.
Gitau said the children, who are aged between six and 17 years had gotten addicted to the business, and collected plastic and scrape metals from industries and their neighborhoods for sale to buy food for themselves and their families.
She said some of them were hard core criminals, and had severally been arrested for stealing scrap metals from individuals and industrial companies in the region.
The director revealed that the children are fully accommodated at the centre, and had been admitted at St. Pauls and Mavoko Primary Schools in Athi River.