A theological-ethical judgement of child labour in South Africa

Throughout the world child labour is a problem which has been under especially close scrutiny for the past three decades. Although child labour is not such a serious problem in South Africa as is the case in some other countries, unacceptable forms of child labour also occur here. Socio-economic circumstances force most child labourers to work in order to survive. The result is that these children are deprived of a good education and training in order to occupy positions as adults in order to earn a living wage. In this article child labour is judged as it occurs in South Africa. Child labour is judged in the light of theological-ethical utterances on children as well as on labour. Although the demand to labour is universal (and thus also applies to children), it is obvious that they cannot labour in the same way as adults. Children should rather be educated and equipped to develop their abilities in order to utilise it to the maximum as adult workers.