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<\/div>\nCape Town – Police have advised parents not to write their children\u2019s name on to their backpacks, where its visible, when the new school year begins.<\/p>\n
This has also been highlighted by the Western Cape Missing Persons Unit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The new school year is expected to start next week.<\/p>\n
The police took to Twitter warning parents not to make it easy for criminals to have access to their children, especially with the high rate of human trafficking and kidnapping.<\/p>\n
Instead, they have advised parents to rather write the parent\u2019s phone numbers on their backpacks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
They said: \u201cDo not write your child\u2019s name on his or her personal belongings such as a backpack where it is visible for everyone to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdults who prey on children have tricks to gain a child\u2019s trust and one of these tricks is calling a child by his or her name.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is often difficult for children to separate strangers from acquaintances, and even the good guys from the bad guys. If an adult comes up to them and says their name, it may make the child think the person must be someone they know or their parents know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThis makes the child think it is okay to talk to this adult.<\/p>\n
\u201cA much better idea is to write your phone number instead \u2014 this will prove helpful if anything gets lost or stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Missing persons organisations have made the same plea, especially where school transport is concerned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
They called for parents to ensure that they have trusted drivers who would not leave their children behind at school or abandon them, leaving them vulnerable and unsafe.<\/p>\n
Candice van der Rheede, the founder of the Western Cape Missing Persons Unit, made a public appeal on Facebook this week and told Weekend Argus<\/em> they had seen children disappear or getting lost due to their school transportation not being reliable or safe.<\/p>\n She also advised that parents not place their children\u2019s names on to the exterior of their backpacks but to do so on the interior \u2014 and not to do embroidery on to their school uniforms with their names.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is nearing the time for schools to open and many will be out buying their children\u2019s stationery and uniforms,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t write your child\u2019s name on their bag for all to see, rather write it inside on the top flip.<\/p>\n \u201cI see many parents are still having their child\u2019s name embroidered on their school uniforms; rather have their initials embroidered or write their name on the label inside. Human trafficking is real.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPlease keep our babies safe.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople should make a hundred percent sure of the transport for their children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a problem with transport that drives away from the children and at the end of the day these children are left behind at school and they go missing.\u201d | Weekend Argus<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cape Town – Police have advised parents not to write their children\u2019s name on to their backpacks, where its visible, when the new school year begins. This has also been highlighted by the Western Cape Missing Persons Unit. The new school year is expected to start next week. The police took to Twitter warning parents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}