De-Escalating Violent Gang Activities

Who might ever suspect that when a free and democratic country welcomes the desperate of the world, those fleeing oppression and violence and war situations, migrating out of their countries of origin to find safety and security elsewhere, that in agreeing to give them haven, there are complicating entanglements that will arise in the future. Gangs, to put it politely, of disaffected youth.

Think the banlieues of France where French citizens of Algerian extraction live out miserable lives of poverty and high unemployment, where roving gangs threaten the security presence of French police, and occasionally set off on especial overnight missions to see how many parked vehicles can be successfully torched in a single night.

Canada has its Haitian gangs, its Chinese gangs, its Jamaican gangs, and now it also has its Afghan gangs. Since 2002, over 23,000 Afghans have emigrated to Canada, and just around that time, once the settling-in was well in place, gangs began to appear. There are favoured tattoos, some depicting AK-47 assault rifles as fond memories of what has been left behind, and others: AFL (Afghans for Life) or A4L, and AFG (Afghan Fighting Generation) symbols.

Police in Toronto report that the Afghan street gang members have been involved in stabbings, shootings, drugs, robberies, thefts and automobile-insurance fraud. Staging fake car crashes to enable them to collect insurance money. Many of the young men seem more interested in street life than they are in attending school.

"The evidence shows that the AFL/AFG evolved within smaller neighbourhoods of Toronto, where a number of Afghan youth lived or went to school", according to the Immigration and Refugee Board. "The membership of the AFL/AFG is made up largely of persons of Afghan background." Their age range is between 16 to 24.

The gang was able to arm itself with handguns, and clashed with rival gangs. "The activities of the members include simply ganging up on a fellow student, evolving to possession of multiple weapons". The gangs emerged primarily in Toronto's Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood - a fast-growing hub of Afghans coming to Canada.

Deportation proceedings have been launched against several young men of Afghan origin living in Thorncliffe Park, because of their gang membership and the illegal and violent activities they have been involved in. According to the executive director of the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, a local social agency, gangs aren't the problem he sees; school-attendance indifference is.

"...I think there is a lot of affinity with a group like the Afghan For Life for maybe social and belonging reasons, Afghan pride and all that. I think it's a new community that's trying to find its place in here. It's part of a struggle of integration", explained Jehad Aliweiwi, the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office executive director.

The new and evolving crackdown by the Immigration and Refugee Board appears the latest move to use immigration laws to solve street gang problems. Gang members escape prosecution often because victims fear to become involved, to cooperate and bear witness for fear of retribution. Gangs are hugely responsible for the street violence in the use of guns in Canadian cities.

Police and immigration officials have teamed together to try breaking up gang cohesion by deporting key members of the gangs to their home countries. The tactic has been used in Montreal against Haitian gangs, in Vancouver with Honduran gangs, and in Toronto for ending the warfare between Tamil gangs.

And now the arrival of Afghan gangs have led to focus on their presence as a growing problem.