It seems as if the authorities are losing the battle against the flood of abortion posters clandestinely plastered on all available surfaces in Louis Trichardt, as well as on traffic signs along the N1.

These mini posters are being pasted, in contravention of several municipal by-laws, on traffic signs, substations, walls, poles and even on trees. When looking at the main business streets in the town centre, it obvious that there is little if any enforcement of the municipal bylaws controlling the affixing and prescribed removal of advertising material on the town’s lamp posts.

In the town centre, the traffic signs (and even the palm trees in the civic park) seem to be the exclusive free poster stands for alleged life-threatening back-alley abortion operators. The business environment is also being polluted and numerous residents have complained about the untidiness it creates.

The different advertisements display different names (Dr Shakira, Dr Trevor and Mrs Londolani), but all the advertisements are styled in the same way, with rip-off contact strips.

In reacting to the advertisements, the spokesperson for the Makhado Municipality, Mr Louis Bobodi, said that anybody who wanted to paste up advertisements in town first had to get permission from the municipality. “There are also prescribed ways and places in which such advertisements should be displayed. We are now busy investigating these advertisements,” he said.

He also said a person would in the meantime be tasked to remove the posters, adding that harsh measures would be taken against those found plastering illegal abortion and other notices.

In one of the posters it was indicated that the abortions are “100% safe and pain free – half price for students.”