WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-05-29 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Angelique Serrao
A brazen daylight attack on a 14-year-old schoolgirl has highlighted the dangers regularly experienced by many pupils on the West Rand.
The teenager was attacked on Ontdekkers Road on Thursday by two men who tried to drag her into their car.
Nobody stopped to help, she said.
Principals of other schools in the area said they were aware of children being targeted by criminals, who saw them as soft targets, as well as other similar attacks involving their pupils.
Joyce (not her real name) missed her bus on Thursday after being made to stay late at school by her teacher at Hoerskool Die Burger on the West Rand.
She was walking home along the busy main road in Florida when she heard a car door close behind her.
She turned around and saw a black VW Golf stop next to the pavement and a man walking towards her.
“I started running because that was my immediate reaction, but the car drove and came in front of me. The man grabbed me by the jacket and told me to get into the car.
“I shook my arm and said ‘I won’t’. I pulled away but he grabbed me again and I fell. He started kicking me in the side and the other man in the car said ‘Don’t hit her, just put her into the car’.
“He pulled me up and I managed to get away. I ran in the opposite direction and didn’t look back,” Joyce said.
The Grade 9 pupil is certain the men would have raped her if she had gone in the car, because they didn’t try to search her or steal anything from her.
“I thought I would rather they kill me than get into that car,” she said.
As Joyce’s school shirt had been torn off, she used her jacket to cover herself. She ran to a nearby shopping complex and went into a clothing shop for assistance.
“I said to a woman there: ‘Please help me. I have R5, please let me call my dad. I have been attacked.’
“But she said: ‘It isn’t my problem, get out’.”
Joyce’s grandmother is furious with the school for keeping her granddaughter late and maintains it is the school’s responsibility to make sure the children are safe when going home.
“We all got a letter about a man in a maroon car who was kidnapping girls in the area. My daughter told Joyce not to walk home alone.
“I heard two days ago that that man had been arrested and thought ‘Good, now my grandchildren are safe’, and then this goes and happens,” she said.
Police spokesperson Constable Sefako Xaba said a man had been harassing schoolgirls on the West Rand.
There had been three reported incidents in which a man had forced girls into his Opel Corsa, but he was arrested last week.
Hoerskool Die Burger headmaster Chris Kotze said some of his pupils had been robbed before, but this was the first kidnap attempt.
“I fully understand how the grandmother feels,” he said.
“I have told the children that they mustn’t leave school alone; they must come and tell us and we will take them home.”
Kotze said he believed attacks on schoolchildren were so common “that you don’t even hear about them at all anymore”.
Other principals of West Rand schools confirmed this.
“My kids have been warned numerous times to walk in groups. They get threatened and have knives stuck in their backs.
“They (criminals) do tend to hold the girls up more, but generally it is a mixed group of boys and girls,” said one principal.
A teacher at Allen Glen High School in Allens Nek said two girls from the school had been followed home a few months ago, and Hoerskool Florida said pupils were frequently robbed of their cellphones.
Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson Kate Bapena said the department had received many reports of children becoming easy targets for criminals.
She said Education MEC Angie Motshekga was planning to have talks with MEC for Safety and Security Firoz Cachalia to ask if community policing forums could make schools a priority.