Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
29 September 2023 | 16:40 CAT

Image: TimesLIVE

South Africa is genuinely becoming a gangster’s paradise, looking at the latest edition of the Organized Crime Index, produced by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.

According to the Index, South Africa climbed 12 spots up the criminality index, from 19th in 2021 with a criminality score of 6.63 to seventh place in 2023 with a score of 7.18. The country ranked seventh out of 193 countries on a scale that measures criminality and has the third-highest criminality score in Africa, after the DRC and Nigeria.

The index assessed resilience to organised crime by looking at the strength of a country’s political leadership, governance and criminal justice systems, economic regulations, anti-money laundering laws and civil society.

In an interview with Radio Islam International, Senior Analyst and Researcher at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane highlighted the crimes covered by the index measures.

According to Qhobisheane, the criminality score for the country focused on two factors. The first looks at fifteen different organized criminal markets.

“These include drug trafficking markets, human trafficking, cyber-crime, organized financial crime as well as armed robberies, extortion, kidnapping, environmental crime and infrastructure crime are included amongst the fifteen different markets,” explains Qhobisheane.

The Index also looks at the influence of five criminal actors.

“This looks at quasi organized crime actors, mafia style actors, transnational criminal actors etc,” he added.

Qhobisheane said several transnational foreign actors operate within South Africa, often with the support of local South Africans involved in kidnappings.

“More people today live in countries characterized as having high resilience, when comparing global resilience to the rise in the pervasiveness of criminality, the data shows that response frameworks have failed to meet the organized crime threat. The widening gap between organized crime and our collective resilience efforts highlights the urgent need for informed, practical strategies to combat organized crime globally,” as per the Index.

Listen to the full interview on The Daily Round-Up with Moulana Junaid Kharsany.