Gangs use sex as weapon

Published May 27, 2016

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Cape Town - Sexual violence is being used as a weapon to manipulate and recruit young women into gangs on the Cape Flats, said police Lieutenant Ian Bennett of the Manenberg police station.

“Sex is a tool of power. It is a tool of manipulation and you will find some gangs use it so that women pledge their allegiance to a certain gang. It is actually a comparison to how they would treat a dog.

“Dogs change owners and as the dog goes from one person to the next, the new owner would beat the dog. This is how gangs draw in young girls and abuse them,” said Bennett.

A recent incident of abuse saw two women, aged 26 and 29, being dragged from one territory to another and “beaten to a pulp”, allegedly by gang members sending a message to other female gang members.

Bennett confirmed the incident took place in Manenberg. However, since neither women laid a charge, the case was not investigated.

Bennett was speaking at a debate hosted by the Saartjie Baartman Centre ahead of Child Protection Week, which starts on Sunday.

The centre’s Beverley Houston said there had been a 60 percent year-on-year increase in the number of abused women being admitted to the facility.

Since its establishment in 1999, the centre has helped more than 180 000 victims of violence and abuse.

Director Shaheema McLeod said: “Children who visit the centre often report histories marred with trauma including abuse, neglect, displacement, behavioural problems, substance abuse and difficulties at school.”

Bennett said women had been involved with gangs for as long as gang violence existed in areas besieged by poverty and crime. He and his team have to look after one of the most volatile areas beset with gang violence.

Last month, at least 15 people were shot dead in gang-related incidents.

“Women have been involved with the courierers of illegal weapons and drugs. It is not easy to search a woman there and then. We do know at a school level that girls have been involved in gangs. They have various ways of recruiting and identifying new members. One of the methods is to attract children through money and clothes, jewellery and things like that.

“We have a few incidents where sexual abuse has been reported to us. Gangs abuse young girls or make an example of them by sexually abusing them to show the community don’t mess with us’,” said Bennett.

A child counsellor based at the Manenberg branch of the Saartjie Baartman Centre, Zeenat Osman, said children who were victims of abuse often joined gangs.

“They come with certain backgrounds. If there is abuse in their families, if there is domestic violence in the communities that they grow up in, they are desensitised by their own behaviour.

“They walk around with feelings that they have no other way of expressing other than lashing out.

“They don’t know how to respond to one another,” she said.

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