Children are seen as ideal recruits by gang leaders

Children as young as 12 are increasingly being drawn into gang violence in the Western Cape, where they are exploited as decoys, gunmen, and drug couriers.

- WENDY DONDOLO

According to the latest Western Cape Gang Monitor by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), more than one child was murdered every day in the Western Cape over a three-month period in 2024.

The spike is linked directly to gang violence, where children are either caught in crossfire or recruited into the gangs themselves.

“This sobering statistic is indicative of a wider trend: more children than ever before are being recruited into gangs in the Western Cape,” the report states.

Children are seen as ideal recruits by gang leaders, less likely to be suspected by police, and more willing to prove themselves.

Craven Engel, a pastor and founder of gang-prevention organisation Ceasefire, told the report that gangs are weaponising innocence; “a 12-year-old boy he had assisted, who had been recruited as a gunman for the Only the Family gang, was ‘brainwashed to kill people.’”