By Mark Shaw and Luke Skywalker

The focus of this Policy Note is specifically on the role of women and girls in gangs as an opportunity to examine whether a more “gendered” response to the phenomenon of gangsterism could have success. The case study for the research was the gangs of Cape Town, a city not only with a historical problem of gangs, but one where recent trends have showed a dramatic upswing in violence, both within and between gangs. Cape Town was chosen largely because it offered the possibility, through the network of the Global Initiative and its links to the University of Cape Town, for interviewing female gang members in a way that would have been difficult to achieve elsewhere. Cape Town now displays violence - at a level of 60 homicides per 100,000 residents for 2015/16 – that is consistent with many cities in Latin and Central America that have had longstanding challenges with gangs. In Cape Town, violence is closely linked to changes within the city’s drug economy in marginalised areas, and the introduction of a flood of firearms (ironically many from police stores) from 2010. This has exacerbated conflict between gangs and increased the ability of smaller and new gangs – who have obtained access to weapons – to both enter and expand their drug operations. The result is a fluid and violent environment, although this is generally confined to previously marginalised so-called ‘coloured’ or mixed race areas of the city. It goes without saying, however, that the human cost and suffering has been enormous, with some parts of the city having homicide rates of over 100 deaths per 100,000 people with innocent bystanders, including children, often caught in the crossfire.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational and Organized Crime, 2017. 27p.