By Janine Stephen
The chairperson of parliament's portfolio committee on correctional services has called for 25-year life sentences without the option of parole for "monsters" who kill children.
But unlike two opposition party MPs, Dennis Bloem later said that bringing back the death penalty could be entertained by the committee.
Bloem on Tuesday referred to two of the latest child victims: 6-year-old Mikayla Rossouw, found dead in Swellendam in the Western Cape at the weekend, and 8-year-old Refilwe Ringane, killed in Limpopo earlier in June.
If, as some people argued, those who killed children were "sick", then "they must be removed from society" and placed somewhere where they could never do this again, Bloem said.
He noted that after the parliamentary recess, the committee would be dealing with legislation which would provide "a golden opportunity" to review parole policy.
"I'm having a very strong, very strong feeling that when a court is sentencing a person to life imprisonment, it must be for life. And life means 25 years internationally," he said.
Only after the full sentence had been served should such prisoners be considered for parole - and it should not be awarded automatically.
"Nobody has the right to take the life of anybody, more especially innocent and harmless children," said Bloem.
"We must act and stop these monsters from killing our children."
Sybil Seaton, an Inkatha Freedom Party MP, believed the death penalty should be reconsidered. Specifically "where it involves children - where children are raped and murdered, I believe the country has got to reconsider the death penalty."
The Minority Front's Sunklavathy Rajbally was inclined to agree "in respect of bringing back the death penalty as a deterrent".
She also felt that prison was not seen as sufficient punishment.
But ANC MP Noisey Nawa argued that the death penalty was not an option, as it was possible for an innocent person to be sentenced to death.
She agreed that individuals given life sentences should not qualify for parole until they had served 25 years.
The message also needed to go out that children must not only be wary of strangers, but also of people they knew.
"The relatives, the uncles, the fathers are the ones now killing children," Nawa said.
Imogen Davids, the committee secretary, later said the legislation that the committee would look at revising was a draft correctional services amendment bill. It probably would be introduced in July.