Emfuleni’s Department of Social Development (DSD), the Department of Labour (DoL) and the Department of Social Development (DSD) in Gauteng, kick-started Child Labour Day campaign and Child Protection Week by engaging communities in and around the Emfuleni Municipality, in Sharpville on the 9th June 2012.

This initiative came after these Departments came together last year and did an inspection around the area and discovered that under age children are being exploited and made to work for their families instead of going to school.

The Child Protection Week started from the 26th May and will ended on 3 June, whilst the International Child Labour day was celebrated on the 12 June.

The activity marked the quest to protect tomorrow’s leaders, hence the objective was to raise awareness for children’s rights and encourage people to take care of and protect children in their communities.

The South African constitution clearly provides that children under the age of 18 have a right to be protected from work that is exploitative, hazardous, or otherwise inappropriate for their age, detrimental to their age, or detrimental to their social, physical, mental, spiritual or moral development.

By Thabiso Radebe