Photo by Jared Rossouw.
12 February 2014
Dr Kelly Gillespie, a social anthropology researcher based at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), warned the Khayelitsha commission of inquiry into policing that the township’s gangs can change into something worse.
Gillespie spent a month in Khayelitsha, questioning residents about policing and justice.
She said that gangsterism and drug-related violence were the two most concerning issues to the residents of Khayelitsha. Yet these are relatively new phenomena in the township.
The two dominant gangs in Khayelitsha are Vuros and Vatos. These gangs are primarily young men aged 12 to 18. They meet often in pitched battles using pangas, knives, golf clubs or stones. There are also the baby Vuros and baby Vatos, who are aged seven to twelve who play a supporting role for the senior gang structures.
Gillespie testified that her research in Khayelitsha showed that the police do not believe Vuros and Vatos are gangs, while community members insisted they are.
Gillespie describes these structures as proto-gangs (a simple or basic gang structure). These gangs are different from those elsewhere on the Cape Flats (such as the Hard Livings and the Americans), which are organised around transporting and selling drugs.
Worryingly, however, Dr Gillespie explained that this proto-gang formation is always seen as the precursor to formal gang structures. “This is pretty much how gangs get started everywhere … if not checked this could escalate quite quickly into something more similar to what we see elsewhere,” said Gillespie. She further said that the development of Vuros and Vatos into fully-fledged gangs is inevitable if their activities continue unchecked and unpoliced.