Young ladies and even boys are warned to be on the lookout for sexual predators who want to use them as prostitutes.

A young lady walked home last week in broad daylight and was approached several times by a man in a white bakkie.

“We would like to warn girls about this, because we don’t want a tragedy to happen,” the girl’s mother said on Tuesday.

The girl, who doesn’t want to be identified, said that a white bakkie stopped next to her as she was walking in President Street and then turned into Breda Street. The man asked her if she wanted a lift.

“I said ‘No thank you, I’m fine.’”

He stopped a second time beside her and asked the same question. She declined and said that she would walk. He drove around the block and approached her a third time.

“He asked me how much I would charge him for sex.”

The girl didn’t answer but walked faster and tried to stick behind a group of people who were walking ahead of her. The bakkie kept following her until she reached home. Her mother said that the bakkie passed their house three times.

“One can’t think that there are people like that right in our midst,” the mother said.

“The guy has black, well-styled hair and his complexion was not very dark. He speaks English and has a medium build. He could be in his late twenties or early thirties,” the girl said.

Although the young lady is in her early twenties, she did not wear make up and has a very young look. She could easily have been mistaken for a school girl.

“A girl and even a boy should not walk alone. The good old times when you could walk safely are past. Don’t talk to anybody who stops next to you. Rather shout as loudly as you can. A good idea is to carry a whistle, since it has been proved that most perpetrators take off at the sound of a whistle,” is the wise counsel of Dr Phillip Venter of the Dutch Reformed Church Soutpansberg. He would, however, not advise girls to carry a weapon or try to fight because they might get hurt.

Mr Ryno Mostert, controlling prosecutor at the local magistrate’s court, said that to approach a lady with such a request constitutes crimen injuria. Her honour and dignity are tainted because such a request has the implication that the man regards her as a prostitute.

“Nothing infuriates me more than the abuse of a young girl,” says Dr Venter. He says that once girls or boys get into the cycle of experimenting with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, the road easily leads to prostitution and eventually to death.

“It is better to prevent it by not even getting into the first stage of experimenting,” he says.

Pastor Michael Dippenaar of the Pinkster Protestante Kerk agrees that prevention is better. “A child should understand that his or her body is holy unto the Lord,” Pastor Dippenaar says. He says that children and teenagers with an open relationship with their parents will have a better chance of saying no to wrong propositions.

“I counsel not as many girls who have fallen into prostitution as girls who believed the lies of their boyfriends and became sexually active. When the ‘bubble bursts’, they realize that none of the promises was true. Life is more precious than that.”

The spokesperson from the Child Protection Unit says that the danger of sexual abuse is not on the streets alone but also lurks inside homes where trusted family members exploit children.

The young lady fortunately had the moral fibre to say no to the proposition. But what about the men who make these suggestions?

In an open message to perpetrators and abusers of this kind, a Muslim publication writes: “You are damaging a human being, body and mind. You deserve to be punished … Yet, there is hope for you who seek help.”