Gang violence erupts for one of three reasons – battle for turf control, retaliation or initiation.
As the festive season approaches, beside a mass turf war which has run across the province over the last few weeks, officials believe initiation and recruitment is in full swing. And as discussed in the previous article, these are often targeted at children.
Abie Isaacs, chair of the Cape Flats Safety Forum, says gangs target children from the ages of 12 for joining the main gangs.
“Stone-throwing is not a co-incidence. The stone throwing is also part of initiation,” he says. “The age group is becoming younger and more brazen.”
Isaacs continues that the strategies are shifting to include athletics meets and other gatherings of youths to determine some of the requirements of filling gang positions, which includes speed.
“The reasons the ages are becoming younger and younger is because we have an act, that from time to time protects children,” he says.
Retired police brigadier Cass Goolam confirms that children are getting involved in gang activity from around eight years old. “At a certain time of the year, especially this time just as they finish writing exams, you find that gangs start to recruit. You find mini wars between the youth when they come from school. They would be stoning each other or blocking each other from crossing. The senior gangs are the ones that task, to see who can fit in. That is the recruitment process, and once they identify those, they sit with them to now qualify to join the gang,” he says.
Recruitment
An industry insider, who we will refer to as “Money”, says sometimes recruitment happens in the home.
“You will see small groups of boys joining up together at school, because their fathers or brothers or uncles belong to the same gang and they are exposed to it. It can be children from six or seven years old. That happens to another group of boys at the same school with a different gang and they clash at school,” Money says.
“Recruitment is all about proving yourself. A gang will never say no to anyone, but how you perform determines your place in the gang.”
Money says anyone wanting to join a gang must often “draw blood”.
“You are given a gun. If you go out there and you shoot, but you don’t shoot someone, or kill someone, or hurt someone, then you are wasting bullets.”
Goolam says initiation differs and can also include armed robberies.
Using children
Money confirms that gangs recruit children under the ages of 16, because they often do not face jail time.
Goolam says during his tenure, he has witnessed first hand how children are used to cover up crimes. “You find gang members from the ages of eight,” he says. “One of the modus operandi (of gang members) when police are approaching, is they will give the package of drugs and money to a child, who is trained and part of them. He will come past and greet the police and go away.”
This means that in a search, no contraband will be found. Goolam continues that these children are not as innocent as they may appear.
“They use them. This child could talk the talk, and he has drawn blood. At eight years old, the language he was using while waiting for social services, was unbelievable,” he says.
Positive influences
Pastor Cecil Isaacs, who runs a feeding scheme and is attached to the Abakhululi Foundation Better Life Choices School Prison Ministries, says working with juvenile prisoners at Pollsmoor Prison has revealed the shocking impact of fatherless homes on the young population of criminals. “We worked there for almost seven months. I would ask the question how many were raised without a father and the majority of them would raise their hands,” he says.
This was his own experience. With his parents divorced, he also sought a sense of belonging and joined a gang.
Isaacs, who is now a reformed gangster, says fatherless homes is a major epidemic on the Cape Flats. According to a 2022 report by Statistics South Africa, more than 60% of live births recorded for the year 2021 were registered without the details of the father.
“In the area where I work, with the feeding we share the word of God and share encouragement with the young men,” he says.
Also involved in a “Father to the Fatherless” outreach initiative, Isaacs says rebelliousness in children are as a result of the loss of that paternal figure in the home
