A mother has been forced to fly her son to New Zealand to escape the growing eshay culture in Australia.
Laura* was left fearing for her son’s life after he joined an eshay gang on the Gold Coast six weeks ago.
Laura said her son was reluctant to go and that three family members had to force him onto a connecting flight to Melbourne.
He was then forced to stay with family at an AirbnB until his passport was processed by authorities and he was allowed to fly to New Zealand.
Laura said her son comes from a stable home with no bullying or trauma in the family.
She doesn’t understand how her son has been pulled into the dark underbelly of juvenile crime and deliquency.
Laura said she would have relocated her son to a different city, but feared he would be dragged into another eshay gang.She said police could only do so much and that she had sent her son to see a psychiatrist, but had no luck.
The rise of the eshay is striking fear into middle-class parents worried their children want to emulate a dangerous subculture and fall into a life of crime.
Eshay or lad culture is said to have spread from Sydney’s inner-city graffiti scene in the 1980s through Housing Commission estates and out into the suburbs.
Hard-core eshays engage in assaults, robberies and threatening behaviour against other youths but many seem to wander the streets and hang around train stations aimlessly.
Where eshays – also known as lads – once predominantly came from disadvantaged backgrounds their ethos and pig latin slang is now more mainstream and widely promoted on social media, and are found even in the wealthiest suburbs.
*name changed for privacy