• Hotspots where most street kids dwell are Globe Roundabout, Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street, areas around the Kenya Cinema and Mlango kubwa.
• In this financial year, City Hall is to spend Sh40 million to rescue and rehabilitate street children in Nairobi .
MCAs are pushing City Hall to introduce a street-to-school campaign to rescue and rehabilitate street children.
The move comes as the number of street children, mostly in the Central Business District, has been surging for three years.
The 2019 National Census said Kenya has 46,639 street people, mostly aged between 10 and 34 years.
Out of the total, 15,337 of them are in Nairobi.
Mowlem MCA Benson Mwangi moved the motion for a street-to-school programme. It calls for a one-month vacate notice.
“This assembly resolves the county executive initiate a street-to-school campaign towards eliminating children from the streets to schools with proper guidelines," he said.
Last month, Nairobi Street Families Consortium secretary general Fatuma Shahenza urged the government to provide street families with free education as well as empower to support themselves.
Legislators want the Ann Kananu-led administration to issue a one-month notice to vacate. Then an operation would be launched to rehabilitate children and enrol them in school.
The children would first be taken to the Ruai Rehabilitation Centre for enrollment in the programme.
Mwangi said Nairobi has at least 60,000 street children, many of them of school-going age. He is also chairman of the assembly's planning committee.
"It is disturbing that these children are missing out on education yet free and compulsory education is a right for every single child in Kenya,” Mwangi said.
He said instead of these children being in school, they are being exposed to sexual exploitation, drug abuse, harassment, lack of basic needs as well as poor hygiene and sanitation conditions.
Supporting the motion, Highrise MCA Kennedy Oyugi recommended the county through a public-private partnership with non-state agencies set up a street children's rescue centre for learning.
“Article 53 (1) of the Constitution dictates that every child has a right to be protected from abuse, neglect, harmful cultural practices, all forms of violence, inhumane treatment and punishment, among others,” he said.
The centre should be fully equipped to make the initiative a success, he said.
In this financial year, City Hall is to spend Sh40 million to rescue and rehabilitate street children, families and other vulnerable people and reintegrate them into society.
The project aims to reduce the number of street children.
In FY 2020-2021, the government had planned to rescue 300 street children from the streets and informal settlements.
Two hundred and fifty were placed in childcare facilities for rehabilitation, family reunification and reintegration.
In 2019-2020, 281 street children were rescued, including 71 reunited with their families. The others were placed in rehabilitation facilities.
The city has mapped street families from 'hotspots' where they mostly dwell: around Globe Roundabout, Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street, the Kenya Cinema and Mlango Kubwa.
(Edited by V. Graham)