Hanover Park is a predominantly coloured community in the Western Cape. This community has been plagued by gang violence for over a decade. There are two main gangs in the area namely the Americans and the Mongrels and most of the violence between these gangs has erupted as a result of territory (turf) wars. Since these turf wars have started, the Mongrels have split, creating another gang known as the Laughing boys. These turf wars affect the entire community.
One of the most frightening aspects is that members lure children into their gangs with promises of a better lifestyle and more money. One of the initiation programmes is for a new gang member to shoot a member of the opposite gang (dead) in order to prove their worthiness in the gang. As recently as a few weeks ago, a nine year old child was taught to use a gun and shot and killed an adult for one hundred rand. Because of the nature of the crime, the child will not be released from police custody (http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/Story.aspx?Id=66966)
The gangs prey on the weak and vulnerable in the community taking advantage of poverty, addiction unstable home environments, absent fathers and the like. Families are being paid up to four and a half thousand rand a night to house the gangster’s drugs and whatever else they need to store. The people chosen are usually selected as they seem least likely to be suspected by police, and are often not in a financial position to say no. They suddenly have access to a lot of money and a lot of drugs, mainly tik, and begin to indulge themselves. Their addiction and dependence on the income from the gangsters is how they become trapped.
Families are also given money by the gangsters so that their sons can go and kill a ‘target.’ Because the families are not in a position to refuse, they support and encourage their children in the gangster’s requests. To kill another human, a teenage boy’s family is paid up to one thousand rand. Families sell their daughters to the gangsters for the protection of their daughter and the family as a whole, as well as the money that they so desperately need to survive.
Taxis and their drivers operate under gangs as well. Often they will have what is termed a ‘taxi queen.’ A taxi queen is a girl that the taxi driver uses as a prostitute. This is appealing to the girls especially in the context of poverty because this man is making them feel special he has a car and buys them nice things. These girls can be as young as eleven years old.
Current situation
Since October 2010 the gangs have been relatively peaceful as a result of a peace treaty that was signed. However, this treaty did not last and turf wars have recently restarted in Hanover Park. Since May 2011 at least four gang related deaths have been reported, two of which occurred in the space of a week. This Monday (8th of August 2011) gangsters were searching for and chasing a teenage boy that had been labelled a target, and shot him dead. Children have to walk home from school and various other places in the afternoon amidst a full blown gang war.
Interdicts are legal sanctions prohibiting the behaviour of one person against another. Interdicts are usually employed in spousal relationships against abuse. Currently police stations are filled with people waiting to get interdicts, what is frightening is that these interdicts are acquired by parents against their own children. A large majority of parents in the community are afraid of their own sons, because of their gang involvement and their dependence on tik (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/interdict).
Tik makes people very volatile, it is a stimulant and thus keeps one awake for extended periods of time, when on tik people don’t eat and feel nauseous when they do, people on tik lose interest in maintaining their lives. It is thus understandable that parents feel frightened of their children. Especially when an addiction to tik is paired with gang involvement, aggression and a gun (http://www.12steptreatmentcentres.com/TIK_CRYSTAL_METH_DRUG_ABUSE_SOUTH_AFRICA_79.asp).
The nature of the turf wars are such that shoot outs start up randomly throughout Hanover Park, in the midst of innocent community members and children. The residents have to take cover for fear of ricochet bullets and wait for the shooting to stop. Community members are not supposed leave their homes after six o’clock in the evening for their own safety. The community is in a state of hyper-vigilance, as there is no certainty as to where and when the next shoot out will erupt and who will be in danger. This state of hyper-vigilance has been observed even prior to this recent outburst of gang violence.
Potential psychological effects
Hyper-vigilance falls under the subsection of hyper-arousal in the DSM-IV-TR definition of Posttraumatic stress disorder, and is to be expected given the circumstances. The same is true for intrusion and constriction. Posttraumatic stress disorder is manageable provided that the person begins to feel safe and is in no immediate threat. The people of Hanover Park and people in other communities undergoing similar experiences do not feel safe, and live in constant fear. In these circumstances how does one even begin to correct the damage of this continuous trauma?
Long term effects of continuous trauma on the community
Possible long term effects of continuous trauma on the community of Hanover Park include but are not limited to; flattened/inappropriate affect, dissociation, hyper-vigilance, sleep disturbances, hyper arousal and eating disorders. Learning difficulties amongst children exposed to trauma are common, which may account for a high academic failure rate in these communities. Children that have been exposed to trauma are often very hyperactive, causing them to be ‘problem’ children. The behaviour associated with ‘problem’ children can often lead to abuse of the children on the part of the parents as they do not know how to handle their children for a number of reasons, firstly ‘problem’ children are difficult to handle for any parent let alone parents living in Hanover Park under constant stress, secondly the parents are likely to be traumatised themselves as a result of their own experiences within the community which is likely to impair their judgement, trauma can often lead to substance abuse which also impairs ones judgement and is commonly related to child abuse, and lastly the parents in Hanover Park more often than not have not had good role models as far as parenting is concerned (http://www.monash.ac.za/tyronepretorius/fortitude-and-violence-in-adolescents.pdf).
Ineffective parenting styles and the community environment can lead members to seek safety and security for themselves and their families, especially young boys and men, making them vulnerable to recruitment by older gang members.
The recruitment of younger members into gangs allows the gangs to continue, as they use the younger members to commit their crimes, as they are not eligible for prosecution. In so doing allowing the violence to continue, which in turn continues to traumatise the community and so the cycle continues.
Can this be rectified? Can we expect change in an environment that while begging for it, enables things to continue?
Speaking to members of the community has revealed that more often than not family members are well aware of the gang status of their children, and protect them and their identity, so that they are neither discovered nor arrested. Some community members also leave their houses open or unlocked allowing gangsters to use their homes as storage points and hiding places for guns or drugs or whatever else they might need them for. It is these sorts of behaviours that enable gangs and gang violence to continue in the community of Hanover Park. It seems unrealistic to expect change in this community as the community itself is enabling the gangs and gang violence to continue.
What sorts of interventions have the power to illicit possible long term change in Hanover Park and similar communities? Where and how would one begin especially when the effect of continuous trauma on the community members themselves is taken into account?
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