“My child has been imprisoned illegally, he was not a drug user or a dealer. He was a good, kind, well behaved kid.”
While his original sentence was one month, Nkurunziza’s child has been gone from home for over a year now. He had been in a taxi with a friend, who escaped the car when they were stopped at a police traffic inspection. In it, he had left a bag of cannabis, which was connected to Nkurunziza’s son. He was then detained and taken to Iwawa, a rehabilitation centre for “delinquents” in Rwanda.
Nkurunziza’s son is just one of the recent cases of Rwanda’s carceral treatment system: societal “delinquency” is addressed through large rehabilitation centres. Thousands are housed in them, serving undetermined sentences for a variety of criminal, deviant or undesired behaviours like begging or using drugs.
Rehabilitation through arrest
Rwanda has approached much of its social problems from a carceral perspective. As a result, it has the third highest rate of incarceration of the world: with an estimated 89,034 detainees (or a rate of 637 per 100,000 people), it is only surpassed by El Salvador and Cuba.
This explosive reliance on incarceration came in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Seen globally as an example of justice and reconciliation between warring communities almost 30 years ago, it was followed by a highly punitive period. Given the lack of a reliable justice system, imprisonment was used widely and frequently for those suspected of genocidal involvement. This meant that in 1999, Rwanda’s prison population ballooned to an estimated 150,000, when detention capacity was 12,000 at the time.
Since then, the country has done much to recover politically and economically from the shadow of its genocide. Paul Kagame, having previously been Vice President and Minister of Defense, became President in 2000. During his presidency, Kagame oversaw the country’s economic development, growing its GDP at an average 7% between 2000 and 2020. It is also widely considered one of the safest countries in Africa. This came at a political and cost: Kagame has abolished term sentences for his presidency, as well as run three consecutive elections where the main opposition candidates were arrested or barred from participating. Rwandan efforts to reduce poverty rates have also stagnated in the past decade, with just under half (48%
Concerns around delinquency remained at the forefront of Rwandan public policy, which according to the government, worsened since the genocide due to “trauma, loss of hope, sense of direction and purpose of life”. Given the execution of many families, and the consequent arrest of thousands in the genocide’s judicial proceedings, many families’ core unit were ruptured. A 2014 report by the Rwandan National Commission for Children study estimated there were 700,000 orphans across Rwanda, with 39% of all under-18s not living with both their parents.
However, Rwandan drug use, particularly for young people, has not been a serious issue. A 2015 study highlighted that 52.5% had consumed at least one drug in their lifetime, with the majority (50.6%) having been alcohol, followed by tobacco (10.6%); only 4.4% of young people admitted to having used cannabis.
To address societal delinquency, Rwanda criminalised various activities: from drug use, sex work, to begging. Those arrested for such actions will either have lengthy prison sentences, or get the opportunity to enter the country’s rehabilitation system.
Rwanda’s War on Delinquency
The National Rehabilitation Service (NRS) was borne out of the need to respond to delinquency and wider concerns in society. There, they define rehabilitation widely as reforming people exhibiting “deviant acts or behaviours”. Drug use, poverty, political instability, urbanisation, or the lack of employment are all listed as factors that can exacerbate delinquency in society.
The NRS’s mandate is to “eradicate all forms of deviant behaviours”, in the hopes of achieving a delinquency-free Rwandan society. Its main mechanism to execute this mission is through its rehabilitation centres.
Iwawa, Gitagata, Nyamagabe are the three centres in Rwanda. Opened in 2010, they provide housing, counselling and professional skill developments to develop, according to their legislation, “behaviours that are not detrimental to the community”. Iwawa and Nyamagabe are male-only centres; Gitagata however is mixed. From 2011 to 2019, 21,614 patients went through the three centres.
The issue with these centres aggregates all sorts of people that have engaged in societally undesirable behaviours: be that drug use, begging, or sleeping on the street. Vastly different support profiles are needed for this diverse population: from support for drug dependency, to professional development, all the way to psychiatric interventions. Detaining them all together and giving both them and those tasked with their rehabilitation the challenge to improve their conditions is a serious challenge.
While these rehabilitation centres are framed as different from prison, much of the patients’ treatment is similar to that of incarcerated inmates. However, the latter at least have defined sentence periods to serve.
“How can he be happy while he is in prison?”
For Nkurunziza, his son has essentially disappeared.
“He was sentenced to one month in prison; almost a year has passed and he is still in there.”
According to Rwandan legislation, the rehabilitation centres are the ones determining patients’ length of stay, “depending on… the type of rehabilitation program he or she receives.”
While visits are allowed, Nkurunziza, who has limited physical mobility, has not been able to see or speak with his son for the past year. Phones are not allowed inside; he has no idea of what has happened to him, or how he is doing.
In September 2022, the Minister of Local Government Jean Marie Vianney Gatabazi visited Iwawa, explaining the state’s “tough-love” approach: “You are under this rehabilitation process because the Government of Rwanda loves you, otherwise you would all be in prisons because most of you were criminals.”
Nkurunziza, however, feels differently about how his son’s treatment.
“How can he be happy while he is in prison illegally?” he asked.
For Ahmed Said, Regional Coordinator of the African Network of People Who Use Drugs (AfricaNPUD), centres like Iwawa are failing those they seek to rehabilitate.
“Connecting to the subject as a person who uses drugs, coerced or forced drug treatment is a derogation of human rights,” Said told TalkingDrugs.
“As people who use drugs our autonomy must be respected and this not only in the case of Iwawa Island, of Rwanda, but across the globe.”
Rwanda’s challenge ahead
While Rwanda has a challenge ahead of it to support its young population with drug treatment services and a stable economic situation, there are considerable doubts about whether Iwawa and similar rehabilitation centres are improving outcomes for its patients.
As Said commented, arresting people who use drugs “has just multiplied stigma and discrimination and post-trauma pain among our community.”
In the NRS’ national delinquency policy there is a recognition that vocational training given in Iwawa is not currently matching Rwandan labour market needs – a concern noted within the centre almost 15 years ago. And while upskilling patients is highlighted as a key factor to avoid recidivism, no targets have been set for reducing recidivism rates. There is no system to monitor progress or review centres’ activities to determine whether they’re successfully reintegrating patients into the wider Rwandan community – or not.
Sweeping up vulnerable populations through widely-defined “anti-delinquency” plans and congregating them all in rehabilitation centres creates an even larger challenge for the state to resolve. Such centres are incarcerating young people and providing few solutions to improve their lives.
“From AfricaNPUD, we are ready for dialogue with key stakeholders to make them understand that using drugs is part of our human rights and we are in position to always make powerful decisions about our drug use,” added Said.
