A South African children's charity has been forced to apologise after running a controversial advertisement which showed a white woman feeding a black child like a dog.

The one-minute video features the child sitting on the floor almost begging for food as the woman feeds him from the table.

Another clip has the woman feeding the youngster a treat as he lays in her lap on a couch like a puppy.

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The young black child is fed by the wealthy looking white woman in a manner she would treat a dog

The youngster gets down on his knees and is fed a 'treat' as the woman has her afternoon tea

Later, child is seen below the dining room table getting fed by the woman like a dog

Offence: The charity has been forced to apologise for the scenes which it claims were well-intentioned

The video was produced for South African charity Save A Child by advertising giant Ogilvy and Mather.

Save A Child's chief executive Alza Rautenbach apologised for any offence caused by the advert. She said she wanted to raise the issue of child hunger in South Africa.

She said: 'What if this advert changed a child's life? What if this advert changed 3.5 million children's lives? What if this was your child going to bed hungry tonight, and this advert can change that?

'The child was a character that the agency used. It wasn't chosen for any specific reason – and yes, the idea was to use multiracial people, just as our country is. It doesn't help to have an advert that is not representative.'

The charity's chief executive Alza Rautenbach, pictured, said it was never her intention to cause offence

The controversial advert was scheduled to be broadcast between news programmes in South Africa.

It claimed that the average domestic dog was better fed than millions of impoverished children in South Africa.

The charity said that the real message of the advert got lost in the controversy.

The charity apologised for the advertisement claiming their core message had been 'diluted or lost altogether'

According to a statement: 'The management and associates of Feed A Child extends our unreserved apology to any person or group who have been offended or hurt in any manner by our recent commercial that was shown on national television and YouTube. Our intention was not to cause offence.

We acknowledge the fact that the advert could have been seen as insensitive or distasteful and we take heed to the fact that many perceived the advert as racist. Feed A Child

'We acknowledge the fact that the advert could have been seen as insensitive or distasteful and we take heed to the fact that many perceived the advert as racist. This was most certainly not the intention, and again we apologise.

'Unfortunately the core message of the commercial became diluted or even lost through the interpretation thereof.

'The core message of the commercial was to draw attention to the extremely important issue of malnutition and raise awareness of the plight of many children in South Africa who go to bed hungry.

'The commercial requests assistance to help us as an organisation (and many other organisations who do similar work) to address the situation.