INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD CARE IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA

criminality one of the most urgent aspects to the challenge of crime in the country.
(Leoschut & Bonora, 2007) A sizable percentage of the violent crime committed is by
perpetrators between the ages of 12 and 22. (Burton, 2007) A significant portion of
homicide victims within South Africa are teenage males who suffered an attack from
acquaintances during a display of antisocial behavior. (Seedat, 2009) The orphans living
in urban areas in Johannesburg are prone to suffer from an exposure to violence. A 10-
year study revealed that the effects of community-level violence were of the same
severity as family violence, although it tended to manifest itself in symptoms of PTSD
rather than developmental challenges. (Barbarin & Richter, 2001) Children who had been
direct victims of victims suffered even more psychological distress. (Shields, 2009)
One of the areas of Johannesburg most associated with crime is the area of
Hillbrow, which is also the location of 5Cees. Hillbrow is a neighborhood within what
was Johannesburg’s Central Business District during apartheid, and today it serves as a
prominent case study of urban violence in South Africa. It is densely populated and
consists primarily of high rise apartment blocks, hotels, and storefronts built in the 1950s
and 1960s. The neighborhood long been a center of racial tensions, from the efforts to
remove Black residents in the 1970s to the influx of Black residents post-apartheid. Most
of its current residents are migrants from Johannesburg’s townships, provincial rural
areas, or immigrants from other African nations, primarily Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
(Morris, 1999) Many of these migrants have turned to Hillbrow’s illicit industries to
attain survival resources. The area today is notorious for its high rates of inner city crime,
its sex industry, and its economy of drug dealing, all of which take place within
Hillbrow’s hotels, as well as outdoors on its streets. (Leggett, 2002; Stadler & Delaney,
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