The New Age reports that more than half a million children in South Africa, some as young as seven, were being used for child labour in 2015.  

A shocking report released by Statistics SA on Tuesday, entitled ‘The Social Profile of Children aged 7-17 years, 2002-2016’, indicated that children were not only used for labour, but deprived of basic rights such as education and proper health.  Some 2.2m of them were also orphaned.  More than half a million (577, 000) children between the ages of 7 and 17 years were engaged in child labour in 2015.  The total percentage of children in child labour declined by 1.9 percentage points between 2010 and 2015 (from 7.0% in 2010 to 5.2% in 2015).  The gender gap narrowed over the 5-year period of reporting.  In 2010, a slightly higher percentage of girls was involved in child labour than boys.  Five years on (2015), the percentages of girls and boys in child labour was virtually equal.  The period 2010 – 2015 also saw the largest percentages of children engaged in child labour recorded amongst the black African population group, at 8.0% in 2010 and 5.9% in 2015.  Declines were recorded for all population groups, except among the white population group, where a slight increase of 0.3% was experienced.  Most infringements of rights of children were found to be in rural areas with child labour found to be prevalent in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. 

• Read this report by Lerato Diale in full at The New Age
• Download the Stats SA report at Stats SA online (child labour section on pages 58 to 60)

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