Children head 13 percent of households

Children, some as young as 10, head almost 13 percent of households in Rwanda either because their parents have died or have been jailed, AFP quoted a study published on Wednesday as saying. These families have between one and six children, according to the study, carried out by the Association for Cooperation and Development Research (ACORD). Most of these households depend on agriculture but rarely own more than a small patch of land. The girls are often sexually abused while the boys often end up involved in crime, the report noted. AIDS, the 1994 genocide and the mass jailings that followed are the main causes of this situation, it added.