‘Rude’ girls turn to Cape Flats gang life
Teen mothers and dropouts are drawn into violent culture
THE capital letters — an R on her right wrist and a B on her left — are only about a centimetre high. But their colour, the sickly green synonymous with gang markings all over the world, sends a loud message.
Without batting an eye, the 17year-old girl explained what they mean. “It stands for Rude Bitch. It marks me as a member of the Rude Girls gang.”
The Sunday Times met her on Voëlvlei Street in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, on the Cape Flats — also the turf of the Rude Boys gang. The girl, who has a child, dropped out of school for the second time this year. She was in Grade 9.
“I was stabbing people. I stabbed one girl in her neck because she did not want to return my pen and scissors that she borrowed. I could have killed her,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Me and my sisters, they are 10 and 12, we have lots of problems. We live with our grandmother. We are 14 people in that house, including my baby. My mom lives somewhere else and she has no space for us.
“My dad was shot dead two months ago. He was a leader of the Americans. We did not grow up with him because he was in jail so much.
“After I had my baby I calmed down a lot and went back to school. I could not believe when the principal took me back. But I could not cope. That’s why I dropped out again.”
When asked why she became a Rude Girl, she shrugged again: “We are friends.”
She met a member of the Rude Boys. His name is tattooed on her left arm. Her boyfriend also dropped out of school last year. He was working until he was shot in the foot two weeks ago in a drive-by shooting.
Two weeks ago, just a few blocks away, another shooting occurred, one that would not have raised eyebrows except that it involved minor girls.
The two girls are members of rival gangs whose territory is separated by just a single road,
I stabbed one girl in her neck because she did not want to return my pen and scissors
Kadoring Street.
The grandmother of the shooting victim explained what happened.
“My 17-year-old granddaughter had an argument with a 12year-old girl. They don’t want to say what they argued about. My granddaughter told the 12-yearold to go away, as she wasn’t my granddaughter’s ‘size’.
“The 12-year-old told her she’s coming back and bringing my granddaughter’s ‘size’. She returned to the street with another girl, a 16-year-old, who pulled a gun and pointed it at my granddaughter’s chest.
“My granddaughter grabbed the gun and as they struggled four shots were fired. One bullet grazed her hip and three others lodged in her upper thigh.”
The victim is said to be a member of The Firm Girls and the shooter a member of the Playgirls.
The shooting occurred in the afternoon in full view of a small crowd that had gathered to watch the clash.
The 17-year-old who was shot has moved to live with relatives in another suburb. She is not sure if she will be attending school any time soon.
Later that night, the police arrested the 16-year-old at the house of a member of the Fancy Boys. She appeared in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court on a charge of attempted murder and was sent to a place of safety.
Her boyfriend and stepbrother, who are both members of the Fancy Boys, denied this week that the shooter was a member of the gang.
The brother and another friend were standing in front of the family’s dilapidated, bulletriddled family home. Both of them were on crutches. “We were shot during a drive-by a few days ago,” the brother said.
“My sister is going through a terrible time. Our mom died two years ago, and we don’t have the same father. She doesn’t see her own father. Ever since our mom died, she’s not been herself. She dropped out of school earlier this year. She was in Grade 9.”
The shooter’s boyfriend is an 18-year-old and has the words “Most Wanted” tattooed boldly on the front of his neck.
He blushed when he talked about his pretty girlfriend and showed an SMS he received from her days after her arrest.
In it she tells him in slang Afrikaans how much she regrets what she has done because, she continues, if it had not happened, the two of them could be in each other’s arms.
The brother and the boyfriend were taken in for questioning by the police, who suspected them of providing the gun. They denied this and were released without charge.
Some residents do not believe there are girl gangs on the Cape Flats, but Ruschda O’Shea, principal of Tafelsig Secondary School, said: “The girls on the Cape Flats are forming gangs. The sooner this is acknowledged, the sooner the problem can be addressed.”
O’Shea and other principals in the area have first-hand experience of the worrying new trend among teenage girls.
Last year, the road in front of the school was turned into a battleground as members of two rival girl gangs attacked each other with knives. Several girls were seriously injured in the attack.
“Several intervention sessions were held at the school after that, facilitated by the police’s social crimes unit, the Thusong Centre and the Heal- ing Memories Institute,” O’Shea said. About 15 girls dropped out of Tafelsig Secondary after they refused to go through the programmes. Spine Road Secondary School, 2km away, expelled two pupils involved in the fight.
The sooner this is acknowledged, the sooner the problem can be addressed
Voëlvlei Street has seen two murders and several more attempted murders in the past two weeks.
O’Shea, who has a drawer full of knifes confiscated from pupils, said the gang problem needed serious intervention.
“The older gangs like the 28s prison gang and the Hard Livings gang are busy fighting brutal and deadly territorial wars and they have started to rope in the smaller gangs like the Rude Boys and also the girls.”
She showed a picture of one of her pupils with a terrible burn wound on his arm. “This boy stayed away from school for weeks, and when he finally turned up I asked him where he was. He said he tried to burn away his gang tattoo with a heated spoon. He did not succeed.”