• Tweet

The department also has no targets to eradicate child labour.

MPs had harsh words for senior labour officials at yesterday's labour portfolio committee meeting.

The Department's deputy director-general of labour policy Les Kettledas told the committee that almost 2million children did at least 12 hours of "economic work" a week.

These figures are based on last year's statistics

But DA MP Ian Ollis accused the department of using old statistics and creating confusion.

"The department is fumbling in the dark. It is out of touch with the reality of the exploitative practice of child labour in the country," Ollis said.

Acting director-general Sam Morotoba admitted they had no specific yearly targets setting out how many children should be stopped from working.

Morotoba called on the department to set targets for the eradication of child labour.

"If we don't want to play games with child labour we need to monitor South Africa's progress in getting rid of it," Ollis said.

ANC MP Alina Rantsolase also lashed out at labour officials. She said they needed to come up with a plan for children forced into fetching water very far from home after school instead of studying.

Rantsolase said the department had failed to help those children who were looking after younger siblings after the death of their parents.

"The children can't afford photos for IDs, so they don't get grants because IDs are not free," Rantsolase said.

She said the department should also look into the increasing number of parents working on Sundays, since this left children alone.

"Should we close children in a coal box when parents work on Sunday because there is no one to look after them? The elder kids will have to do the washing for the others.

Working on Sunday is a problem."

Kettledas said one of the biggest problems was that perpetrators of child labour were fined next to nothing and returned to the practice immediately.