Sunday World (20 /05/2007, p.6) carried a story under the headline “Kid sex slaves: social worker nabbed for selling girls into prostitution.” The story is about a social worker who sold girls aged between 15 and 17 years into prostitution instead of putting them in a place of safety as promised .The social worker has been arrested and has already made an initial appearance in the Pretoria magistrate courts.

The story deals with an important social issue: slavery. Although the substance of is about the betrayal of ideals and trust, care was taken by the paper not to expose the girls to further pain and trauma. The report did not reveal the identities of the children and neither did it name the aunt and grandmother of one of the girls who was interviewed. The report did not mention any identifiers which could have led anyone to identify the children.

The paper is commended for publishing the story and highlighting the need for people to be cautious when dealing with strangers who claim to be social workers to avoid similar incidents happening in the future. However, it would have added more insight to the report had the girls themselves been interviewed instead of someone speaking on their behalf.