A COLLOQUIALISM used in the townships to describe young street thugs – amaphara – has been the subject of songs, films and even academic papers.
Ethnographer Mark Hunt, in his paper, Intimate crimes: heroin and the rise of amaphara in South Africa, states that the term was possibly derived from “parasites”. It entered the South African lexicon in the 2010s, as a reference to petty thieves addicted to a heroin-based drug mix known locally as whoonga or nyaope.
Hunt drew on ethnography and media sources to interrogate the rise of amaphara. He argued that South Africa’s heroin epidemic magnifies the attention directed toward marginalised young black men, who have few prospects for social mobility.
He found that amaphara exist, in the national context, because drug policy is largely punitive and youth unemployment rates are painfully high. His paper pays particular attention to families’ and communities’ experiences with, especially, petty thefts. It shows that amaphara is a contested term.
These heroin users are brothers, sons and grandchildren, and they gain most of their income not from crime, but by undertaking useful piece work in communities.”
In Cape Town, long queues at government institutions – such as at Home Affairs, the SA Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) offices and the Post Office – provide a money-making opportunity for these desperate men.
Rasta, 28, ekes out an existence by selling his place in such queues. Home Affairs in Barrack Street in the CBD is his usual haunt.
Rasta said the amaphara were mostly homeless, so it was easy to sleep outside government institutions.
“We gather at the institutions as early as 5pm in the evening, in preparation for the next morning, to be the first in the line. We then offer someone far back in the line a place in exchange for R100 or R150, depending on the area of business.”
Another youngster, Iphara, hustles at the Sassa local office in Gugulethu. He is among a group of about 10 who queue in the evening and place bricks next to the gate as a sign of “positions for sale”.
The 30-year-old said the bricks were a useful way of booking a spot while they use drugs at their regular corners.
“But we come back again, after 8pm, to sleep in the queue when it is quiet.”
He said he charges R100 at sunrise, and the price decreases until later in the morning to R50, before he leaves at noon.
“We are helping people because they get turned back here (Sassa). The queue is very long and people would stand here the whole day only to be turned away without getting assistance later,” he said.
Outside the Sassa office in Gugulethu are old mattresses, blankets and chairs. The amaphara also rent these to people who spend the night in the queue. They charge R20 to rent a mattress and R5 to rent a chair.
Another young man, who did want to be named, said they burned tyres to keep warm when it got cold at night. A place at the fire costs R5.
A mother from Crossroads, who wanted to remain anonymous, was in the queue to renew her child support grant. She arrived at 3am on Wednesday, but was turned away by lunchtime without being helped because she was too far back in the line. She said the next time, she might buy her spot in the front of the queue.
But not all those selling spots in the queue are considered to be amaphara.
Siyamthanda Xabanisa, 32, who is from Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, sleeps outside Home Affairs in the CBD.
He said he lost his job due to Covid-19. He lost his ID, CV and matric certificate as a result of sleeping in the streets. And now, he too queues outside Home Affairs in the hope of selling his spot.
Unemployed Mninimzi Nongindza, 53, said there are rules.“A person can only sell their spot for R150 a day. We also help directing people who stand in wrong queues, and show them the correct lines to avoid being turned away and have to start afresh the next morning.“People arrive at 3am. We do this because we do not want to pick food from the dustbins. We make only R150 per day. We do not steal people’s things,” he said.
He said they capitalise on the long queues.
The chairperson of the community police forum in Macassar, Mark Baatjies, said making money this way was frowned upon and should be discouraged.
The secretary of the Gugulethu Development Forum, Vincent Gomingo, said: “The guys are helping the elderly, who cannot stand in the long queue the whole day. Sassa is not up to standard; these guys had to take advantage of that.”
He said the government needed to intervene in helping the vulnerable citizens and create jobs
“Once you allow that practice to happen it can be manipulated because no one will monitor that thing. Government should rather look for volunteers who will go to the houses of the vulnerable people and consider rendering services,” he said.