SA kids 'severely deprived'
2003-09-23 19:18
Cape Town - A total of 5.3 million South African children are severely deprived and frequently hungry, according to figures presented in the National Council of Provinces by Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya on Tuesday.
Replying to a parliamentary question, he said statistics from the Institute for Democracy in South Africa showed half of these children, aged from 0 to 17, lived in KwaZulu-Natal (27%) and the Eastern Cape (23%).
A further 20 came from Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
The figures represented children suffering "severe deprivation... living in households with self-reported hunger".
"There are approximately 18 million children in South Africa. A total of 10.5 million ... aged 0 to 17, are poor. This represents almost a quarter of the country's population," Skweyiya said.
Among the main reasons for such poverty were high unemployment, the legacy of apartheid, the impact of Aids, and no big business developments in poor areas.
- SAPA