Malindi has announced a decrease in cases of children facing criminal charges.
Malindi chief magistrate Julie Oseko said in the last three years the courts recorded more than 100 cases facing minors while this year the number dropped to 19.
Authorities attributed the decline to strategies such as Court Users Committees for children's affairs, the children's court and an awareness programme aimed at enlightening parents on the need to bring up their children well.
The CUC members led by Oseko, chairperson Olga Onalo together with other magistrates and members spoke during a tour of the children's remand home in Malindi on Thursday.
Oseko said of the 19, majority are from Tana River, Lamu and Kilifi.
Normally when children below 18 years are charged they are taken to children's remand homes. There are only 14 such facilities including the one in Malindi countrywide.
"To me, this is remarkable progress and clearly shows that the strategies put in place are working,'' she said.
Oseko said they had noticed that children were not well taken care of and felt that even the government was not properly looking after them.
She said the criminal justice was not doing justice to them.
To address the problem, she formed a sub committee of the CUC that specifically deals with matters of children.
The panel is chaired by judicial officers together with stakeholders interested in child matters.
A report was presented to the main CUC after a probe into the issues.
"I also decided that any child brought to Malindi law court will be handled by court number four (children's court) chaired by Olga Onalo," she said.
She said those strategies are the ones that have made the numbers drop to 19 from the previous 100 that recorded in 2019.
Onalo said when she came to Malindi in 2019 the number of children brought to court were many and the resources at the remand home were limited that's why they thought of ways to reduce the numbers.
She said in court they came up with plans such as plea bargaining, to divert children from the justice system.
"Some cases just require one to say sorry while others require one to apologise. However, many opt for the court system which makes children skip school and that is not justified," she said.
Onalo said even those with cases of murder or robbery with violence have tried to ensure that they get a reasonable bond as children are supposed to be treated as children in the justice system.
Further, she said they have made sure, cases of children are done within a period of 660 days or utmost six months to prevent them from staying longer.
The magistrate said most children being brought to court have psychological problems such as violence and sexual abuse.
"If parents followed the right track in their upbringing, then we will not have these children in court," he said.
Malindi children's remand home manager Mbito Mvurya said out of the 19 children at the remand home three were girls and 16 boys.
He said the remand home has a capacity of holding 44 children but at times the numbers rise above 50.
"It's through the efforts of the court and the Court Users Committee that the numbers have gone down because their interest is the child. When the number goes up they also come up with a decongestion plan," he said.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
