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The woman pictured in a cage on the back of a bakkie has spoken out, saying she preferred to sit there because it was a hot day.
The picture sparked outrage on social media but the pregnant woman – identified as 27-year-old Linda Senekal of Zuurfontein – said she didn’t want to get hurt so she sat in the cage.
Senekal told HeraldLIVE she needed a lift to a clinic and asked Erasmus to drive her there.
“I didn’t want to sit in the front of the bakkie because it was hot. I also didn’t want to get hurt so I sat in the cage rather than anywhere else,” she said.
Eyewitness News spoke to the Eastern Cape man who drove the bakkie. He said he had dropped off livestock on a farm outside Cradock when the woman asked him for a lift.
“She herself climbed into that thing and I dropped her off in Cradock‚” Johan Erasmus said.
“This cage on the back of the bakkie is a sheep cage that we use to weigh lambs. The cage is loose‚ I tie it down with the straps and then I take it off and weigh lambs.”
IOL spoke to the man’s wife, who said they received several threats on Thursday.
“We’re not scared, we just assisted someone,” she said.
Senekal told HeraldLIVE she did not find it strange to sit in the back because it was normal for people getting a lift to sit there.
“Everyone who hitches a ride usually sits on the back … so it didn’t seem strange to also sit in the cage,” she said.
