Students face disciplinary action after taking photographs of themselves with blacked-up faces and pillows shoved in their skirts to mimic maids in South Africa

Two university students are facing disciplinary action after taking photos of themselves dressed up as black South African maids.

The girls, who are studying at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, smeared their faces with brown paint and shoved pillows down their skirts in a bid to make their bottoms look bigger. Continue...

They then struck a number of poses for the camera, before the images were uploaded to the social-networking site Facebook.

Now, the university in Pretoria, Gauteng Province, is carrying out disciplinary action against the students, who dressed up in the outfits for a friend's party.

The photos, which have since been deleted from Facebook, show the girls posing in a bedroom while donning clothing typically associated with domestic workers.

They appear to be deliberately sticking their bottoms out, while their smiles seemingly suggest they believe their outfits are amusing.

Today, Nicolize Mulder, of the University of Pretoria, said the institution was dealing with the matter seriously.

She told Eyewitness News the students would be punished for bringing the university's name into disrepute - despite the photos having been taken at a private event.

She added that the institution would not tolerate any form of racist behaviour and described the conduct in the pictures as 'completely unacceptable'.  

After the photos were uploaded to Facebook, they quickly went viral, with many social media users condemning the students' choice of outfits.

One Twitter user wrote: 'If I showed that picture to my domestic worker, she would be reduced to tears and would feel belittled and small. #FACT #Blackface.'

Meanwhile, another said: 'Look at the Tukkies' [a nickname for students at the University of Pretoria] #blackface pic. The skin, doeks, big butts. It is performed stereotype of the black female body.'

And one wrote: 'Blackface is masked racism.  There's nothing amusing about it.'

The two students from the Madelief residence did not respond to questions from the news site. Meanwhile, the South African Human Rights Commission said it had not received a complaint relating to the images.