Kathorus Crime Summit aims to fight crime in the township

The Gauteng Department of Community Safety held the Kathorus Crime Summit as part of collaborative efforts to build safer communities at Vosloorus Civic Centre on July 13.

Various stakeholders including Vosloorus Green Door, members of parliament, community members from Kathorus, hostel indunas, local councillors and community leaders attended the summit.

Also in attendance were civil-society organisations, the royal house and senior leadership of various law enforcement agencies within the Eastern Corridor.

The summit was led by MEC for Community Safety Faith Mazibuko.

Member of Parliament Putas Tseki said the purpose of the summit was to mobilise communities to work with the law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime.

He said one of their biggest concerns is the fight against GBV within the LGBTQIA+ community, who are the most vulnerable in society.

“Crime affects everyone whether directly or indirectly,” said Tseki.

According to Mazibuko, the summit forms part of a series of safety intervention programmes across the province, aimed at mobilising communities in the fight against crime.

She explained that the summit will culminate with the development of area-specific and implementable action plans to deal with crime in Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus policing precincts.

“The crime summit hosted in Kathorus today is actually an eye opener of the challenges that our people are experiencing.

“As much as we know that there is a crime, the magnitude of crime that exists here made us zoom in on some of those problems. We had to discuss and agree that we should have commissions,” said Mazibuko.

“From this meeting, we are going to develop a community safety plan for the community of Kathorus. Our safety plan will be ward based and inclusive of the police and other key stakeholders,” she said.

During the summit, the Eastern Corridor director Mziwethu Xaba tasked the stakeholders to form five commissions focusing on various crime challenges in the township of Kathorus.

The commission is expected to identify the cause of and resolutions for GBV, hijacking, substance and drug abuse, parenting and school safety.

GBV commission

The commission on GBV reported that people affected by GBV can be identified by their actions, as most of the time they are fearful, isolate themselves and sit with issues such as anger, and low self-esteem.

It was suggested that the cause of GBV is poverty, jealousy, unemployment, substance abuse, power, cultural beliefs, peer pressure, background history and discrimination.

Parenting commission

Beauty Maboka, who spoke on behalf of the parenting commission, said one of the challenges of parenting is that there is no privacy at home and the cause is historical.

Other challenges are unemployment, family structure, depriving kids of both parents after separation and parents feeding drug addiction, she added.

Maboka said the root cause of lack of proper parenting starts from the foundation, so if the foundation is not stable it becomes a problem.

She said the manner in which parents communicate with children affects them and the comparison of children can be toxic.

“The solution is to have a healthy relationship with parents, and better communication. We need to stop being narcissistic parents and frequently check on the emotional being of children.

“We need recreation facilities, therapy for parents, a workshop about good parenting skills and make sure that our children have rights and teach them about responsibilities,” said Maboka.

Substance and drug abuse commission

According to the report compiled by this commission, the cause of the problem is that people can negotiate their release with the police.

The report suggests that when the community report dealings to station commanders they end up being exposed to threats and intimidation.

“For this to be resolved police need to be involved because in most cases police do not respond or service communities properly.

“Police also fail school in terms of responding to calls of substance abuse. When they find children selling drugs in school they release them on the bases that they are minors.

“The solution is for us to unite as the community and SAPS.”

School safety commission

The commission recommendations;

•The need to beef up patrollers at schools citing that there is an indication that four patrollers are not enough.

• Patrollers must-have resources like metal detectors and cable tires for them to be able to restrain criminals who break into schools.

• SAPS should beef up random school visits and school searches.

• Community members and parents should be more involved in the school governing body (SGB). The report suggests that parents do not attend SGB or parent meetings.

• There is a lack of religion in schools so there is a need to revisit assemblies. There is also a need for spiritual counselling to address the spiritual attacks on learners.

• The commission identified that people who sell drugs are EMS and SAPS members, who bring drugs to school for young learners to sell.

• One of the causes of drugs in schools is peer pressure as children want to be seen as cool. A suggestion to deal with this is to bring full-time social workers to schools because teachers are also at the receiving end.

• Department of Social Development should try to assist schools by identifying child-headed families so they can assist those children.

Hijacking commission

Kgothadi Makena who represented the hijacking commission said the cause of carjacking is unemployment, drugs, undocumented citizens, peer pressure, lack of CPF and patrollers in the community, illegal firearms and unauthorised police branded vehicles.

Makena said the solution needs a focussed approach.

“Collaboration among stakeholders is required. Taxi associations have to play a role, CPF has to be revived and the SAPS has to be empowered along with business communities. Eskom, CoE, hostels and private security also have to play a role.

“All blocks need to revive the CPF whereby they operate efficient and effective within every sector. Within the township we have access points that need to be controlled,” Makena further explained.

“When that is done then curb crime. In an event where a child is kidnapped or a vehicle is stolen, we can respond using whistles and WhatsApp groups to close main entrance points,” he said.

Responding to some of the suggestions provided by the commissions, Mazibuko said Gauteng has adopted the GGT2030 safely plan.

She said they have also procured cars for SAPS in order to address on delay in responding to crime incidents.