The Big Threat to Informal Settlements

More than 50% of people who do not have houses in South Africa are living at informal settlements,
and informal settlements have been viewed as a step towards getting a house in South Africa.
Most people when getting to the City from rural areas, most of the time when they come they'll first
squat (live) with their friend, family members or relatives, while they are still looking for a work but
once they get a job the first thing that they will think about is to get their own place first so that they
can have their own space or privacy.
Most of the time people view this option as the best option to jump the cue from the housing list as
they know that if they bought a house at informal settlement and when the area is being relocated or
being developed they will also benefit as they also owned a house from the area and this most of the
time create problem between people who are coming out side the City and with people who have
been in the City longer or people who have been born in the City but does not have a house.
One of the most reason why people buy their own houses at informal settlements is because they
want to be independent and they want to be in control of their own lives probably because they are
employed and they can afford a shack, 98 % of people who bought shacks at informal settlement
when they bought it it's probably they are employed, have source of income or have a financial
support base system, whether a person is having a business or a family member will be supporting
that person.
There are few people that are living at informal settlement who can afford to buy houses for them
selves, but chose to live at informal settlement, most professionals such as teachers, nurses etc that
are doing this you'll find out they are doing because they are contract workers, casual workers,
others are unemployed.
In most cases all this people will be pushed out of the community by people that they are living with
not only professionals but all people who works at better places or people who are having valuable
goods at their shacks such as DVD home theater, Computers especially laptops, good looking
phones and other valuable items such as cameras, jewelery, expensive clothes etc.
Not only people who are having valuable items but also people who are contributing meaningfully
to the development of people who are living at informal settlements, that is why most of the time
people who are living at informal settlements are being represented by people who are not living at
informal settlements because people that are coming from informal settlements do not want to play
active role as they fear their lives because they are not safe because of the conditions that they are
living under off. Most houses at informal settlements does not even have a yard, and the security of
everyone is being compromised by the conditions, the areas are very dens.
If you turn to differ with others at a community meeting or you supported a serious decision in favor
of others and against others it is likely possible that you become the victim or the target, because of
this most people who are living at informal settlement they are happy with the fact that they are still
employed and they are still able to provide for their families, because of this they chose not to
involve them selves at issues that are happening at a community level not because they don't want to
be involved but because they fear for their lives.
As a results of this our communities are divided, and people sing different songs and as a results of
this our communities are being ruled by the thugs. Tsotsi's (thugs) they do as they please at our
communities, they rule our communities. They have big guns and big knives. All these tsotsi's are
known to our communities, they rob a cell phone from one corner and they sell it to the other corner
from the same community, they steal a DVD from one house and they will sell it to the other house.
They still from the same community and they will sell it from the same community and people are
enjoying buying cheap goods from tsotsi's without understanding that they are destroying our
communities.
This has became a big threat to our communities.
From Site B, Town two to Site C, everyone is talking about tsotsi's and when people talk about
tsotsi's you might thought that they are talking about people that they don't know whereas they talk
about people that they know, when community meeting is called to address the issue of crime,
people will not participate or they might surprise you, they can take a total different position and
you will be viewed as someone who is having a personal problem with tsotsi's, and now they will
not be called as tsotsis they will be called by their names by the very same people that they were
calling them as tsotsis.
If you want to be a target at our communities call a meeting and start addressing the issue of crime
and you will be a target, few people will support you but the majority will sit back or not participate
at all.
The worst part is these tsotsis will shoot, or kill someone in front of people and no one will come
out and say I've seen who killed the other person, and this means your security is being
compromised by your neighbor and by your community, this means the are people around you but
you are not safe.
When something happens in our communities the first people that we criticized of their in
competence are the police, how can you criticized them when reporting a crime scene and no one
saw a suspect or no one is willing to come out and testify against the suspect.
I am not sure what kind of communities that we are building, if people does not want to unite and
deal with this threat, if we are not taking the issue of crime at our communities serious we are going
to lose skilled people at our communities and we'll always be the victims of the system as there will
be no skilled people at our communities to address issues that affect our people such as lack of
tapes, toilets and electricity as a results of this our communities will not be developed but be
destroyed by the tsotsis and the system.
If at each an every corner f our communities we can make sure people comes together and fight
crime we can be able to build crime free communities and our skilled people who were forced out of
the community by uncalled activities can be able to come back to our communities and contribute
with skills that they have in order to advance the interest of the poor.
When people address the issue of crime, I am not saying community must be up into arms and try to
solve crime with crime, I think when someone is ding justice is doing something that will be proud
of where a person will be able to say a justice has been done, but killing someone is not justice, or
beating someone is not justice.
The are few options that are available at communities to address the issue f crime.
Before we want to deal with this threat to our communities, first we must understand the cause of
crime at communities, because if we don't understand the cause then we will fight a losing back
battle at our communities and we will be frustrated and lose control, as a results of this we will start
beating people or stoning people to death with a thought that we are dealing with crime at our
communities.
The reality is whether we like it or not crime will not be combated through two popular systems that
are in favor of many people at our communities
1. Jail system
2. Community Justice
Jail System.
The jail system is not a good system especially for rehabilitation, instead of rehabilitating a person
it only build a criminal. The system is not working and it need to be scraped or overall completely.
In my view most people that goes to jail are innocent and are being failed by the system. Most of the
time people still things that they don't need, but for selling them so that they can get cash/money to
survive. This means the system has failed that person.
It is the responsibility of government to create job opportunities for people who are unemployed,
and create skills training program and income generating project for people who does not have any
educational qualification of formal educations.
Most people who commit crime at our communities does not have any educational qualification and
most of them are unemployed and some of them does not even have matric, they have dropped at
high school for certain financial reason.
All people who commit crime goes to jail, it doesn't matter whether you have killed someone or
stole from someone else, if you go to jail you all go to the same system, and most people today who
are criminals are being built by the jail system, someone make a mistake and stole someones
television because that person was very desperate for money not even for drugsbut for for food, as
part of that you'll find out when people steal things they don't steal things because they want them,
they steal them because they want to sell them in order to make cash. If people steal things because
they want to get cash in order to survive, can we really say they deserve to go to jail and mix with
big criminals who killed people, and raped people? If we do then what we are doing we are
contributing on building stronger criminals, because these people when they are arrested they are
being recruited by gangsters, and when they come out of the prison they join or form gangsters,
what does this mean? This means by sending people to jail we are sending them to be trained as
criminals.
The way forward
Everyone does make mistakes, as human beings and we all need a second chance in life. Crime can
not be combated through the jail system but through creating employment, skills training program
and creating income generating programs for unemployed people.
If people commit crime in our communities that person has commuted crime on a community level
and that person must be punished on a community level not by sending a person to jail. A person
must do a community service for a certain period, and while a person is doing a community service
such person must be capacitate with life skills and it should be a must for a person to participate at
these life skills programs and also those who commit big crimes such as arm robbery they also need
to be given a second chance before people are being send to jail, and when people undermine this
kind of system of community service it is then that they'll need to be send to jail and when they are
being send to jail they must face a life sentence, so that people can understand that committing
crime is a serious offense, and people were given the second chance. I believe we all make
mistakes, and I've seen people making mistakes and admit that they've made a mistake, and if they
had stolen people's goods they'll return them and ask forgiveness and people are being forgiven and
if it means they must pay back whatever they've sold they are able to do that, but if such person was
sent to jail that person would not have asked for forgiven, instead he or she would have go straight to
jail and it is highly possible that person at jail would have joined one of gangsters.
Community Justice System
This is not a good System of justice but a system of heartless people, who are frustrated and fedup
with these uncalled activities, but when looking at this system very close you'll find out the same
people that beat people to death are the very same people that failed those people at their
communities, because these people that commit crime in our communities are people that we live
with and most of the time these people are being failed by us, community members, they suffer in
front of us and there's no one who is willing to share with them, instead of helping them we gossip
about them, most of the time when people commit crime especially at a community level they' ll
steal electric wires, phones, do house breaking, steal money, rob people make the community unsafe
etc.
They are doing it because they are unemployed and they are hungry and there's no one is willing to
assist them instead of seeing the community as a place to protect they see the community as a place
to make money through these uncalled activities and they also joined gangsters, and share the
information about their community with other gangsters, they'll go and rob at other area and people
from other area comes and commit crime at heir area, and this makes the community unsafe for
everyone.
Way forward
This kind f system can also be prevented by the community members only if everyone cares enough
about other human being, part of the challenges will be this so called capitalist system which does
not enable people to learn to share with those that they don't have, instead it create division and
competition in our communities.
It becomes difficult for people to help others especially if they'll will not benefit from the process,
in our days people at our communities will only help you only if the is something in return and this
kind of attitude is the one that lead those that does not have to join gangster and steal from those
that they have within the community.
Each an every community must accept local responsibility and come up with their community
program on how to prevent crime. People who are unemployed at our communities are known by
community members and people who are on drugs are known at our communities, people who
steals cars are known to our communities, people who are robbing people are known at our
communities, then what makes it so difficult for people to manage these issues at our communities,
theres nothing at all but its just that our communities are divided and these criminals they are taking
the advantage of such division within our communities, and these people that are committing crime
most of the time are not living alone they are living with their family members or their parents.
There's nothing that can not be controlled and managed at a community level.
In conclusion
1. If government does not finance and empower communities to initiate their own community
programs such as skills training and development crime will not be combated at our communities
and people on the ground will remain the victims of crime and more money will be spend on
building more jails and on criminals.
2. As long as the educational system does not support those children who comes from highly
disadvantage communities then will continue having more people dropping out of school
before they finish Metric and eventually they'll join gangsters in order to maintain them
selves.
3. As long as government continue implementing these so called neo liberal based policies,
that create gap between the poor and the rich, crime level will continue increasing on a daily
basis.
4. As long as people at a community level view crime as something that need to be dealt with
by the Police, the Police will continue failing community members, because without the help
of the community members the Police will always failed our community.
5. As long as people are still under paid at work and the price of food keeps increasing the
crime rate will not be tackled, as long as goods are not affordable to certain group of people
crime will always increase at our communities.
6. As long certain jobs are being created , the crime rate will continue increasing at our
communities
7. As long as public private partnership is still the option crime will continue increasing at our
communities.
8. As long as people are still homeless, unemployed, and are still living under the appalling
conditions, crime will not be combated.

By: Mzonke Poni
0732562036
ABM WC Chairperson
mzonkep@gmail.com
www.khayelitshastruggles.c.