When we think of child labor, visions of children working in brick kilns, silk factories, restaurants, farms, tea and coffee estates spring to mind. While those definitely constitute child labor, there are other not so obvious forms of child labor we don’t think about.
CBS recently shot a reality show with children called “Kid Nation”. They encamped 40 kids in an abandoned ghost town in New Mexico for more than a month and had the kids perform on camera for more than 14 hours at a stretch, seven days a week, making their own meals. No studio teachers, parents or guardians were present.
The reason for the reality show? Executive producer Tom Forman (the same guy who did “Extreme Makeover. Home Edition”) was bored with the existing crop of reality shows.
New Mexico’s labor laws were extremely lenient at the time the show was shot and did not include television in their child labor laws. It has since been changed to ensure such incidents don’t happen again. But what of the kids who were already affected by this?
Here is an example of child labor happening under our noses. But what are we doing about it? Most of us will probably get some popcorn and settle ourselves to enjoy the first season of “Kid Nation” when it airs in fall. And what about CBS? No law suit has been filed against them so far either.
We need to wake up!
source for this blog: http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/07/the_founding_of_kid_nation.php
7 comments:
Can't agree more!
Here is an article on India together that explores the same thought.
The concept of child rights is something thats conveniently ignored by society - its not something that can be attributed to poverty, its 'ingrained' - consider for e.g. how many organizations, instututions or press take care for the sensitivities of the children before going overboard in publishing and flaunting their private information ?
Agree in totum. It is all a gray area I think. Deciding what is child labour. For decades now ILO has been having annual conferences just trying to decide what is to be classified as child labour. In situations like the one you bring up, with some thought maybe you can decide it is child labour. How about child actors? They are professional. They are paid well. Is it still child labour? Or is it child labour when they are "economically" exploited?
Didnt finish the whole thought in the previous comment. Sorry.
If you think about it, and browse around (particularly within ILO classifications), it increasingly seems like what is termed "child labour" involves an "economic exploitation" in addition to the deprivation to the child in other ways. Another aspect that comes through from ILO is that almost always when heavy manual labour is involved, it is termed "child labour".
Which begs the question, if a child is very talented in something, and is encouraged to pursue that at the cost of everything else, and if that brings the child (and therefore its family) a lot of economic remuneration, then is it child labour? And, without that economic remuneration, is it just a case of encouraging genius?
According to the laws, at least for children working in the entertainment industry, the remuneration to the child is to be held in trusts with the parent - most often - acting as the trustee of the funds until the child reaches the legal age to have complete access to the income.
Situations where money is not involved and merely a question of upbringing, as long as the child cannot be regarded as mentally/physically traumatized by a psychiatrist/psychologist, it is considered all good.
Remember the story of the little boy, Budhia in Orissa who would run marathon distances? The boy was rescued/bought by the 'coach' for Rs.600/- and was asked by the Govt. and various other organizations to stop encouraging the little fellow to run those distances.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4977882.stm
That is my point. The little fellow (Budhia) was in the first place already encouraged to run.
Say a child is very skilled at some task, like playing the flute. Now, the child might be encouraged to practice and play the flute all the time, at the cost of other education, schooling, playing, hanging out with friends etc. Now, if that child starts giving concerts, and there is a lot of money coming in, then is it child labour? If there are no concerts, and no money, then is it "encouraging genius"? Or is it still child labour?
Is child labor interconnected with upbringing?
If the child is being encouraged to play the flute and brings money in for the family through concerts at the cost of all regular child-like activities, it is child labor.
If the child is being encouraged to play the flute all the time, even if it is only because the child loves to engage in that activity, while at the cost of all other development, it is still child labor.
Adult discretion is required for the overall development of the child. If a child engages in an 'intellectual' activity out of love, he/she does it at the cost of overall development only with parental approval. The approval of the parent therefore can be considered to stem from an emotional satisfaction that the adult derives out of granting permission making it child labor.
I think it's really hard to make a judgment on whether or not the upbringing of a child has resulted in child labor or not, excepting in cases where we have glaringly unfair treatment of the child. For example, in the case of the kid that plays flute all the time, who is to say what's to be done and what's correct? For one, we don't even know what overall development means.
The general trust is that parents take good care of their children. Not to be denied, exceptions do exist and that's when we begin to discuss child abuse, parental control and what not.
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