Are kidfluencers the victims of child labour?
When you hear the word kidfluencer, what do you think of? Happy children, who make videos for fun? Well, the truth is those kids get paid for those videos, and when I’m saying paid, I’m talking about a lot of money. Some of these kids are only six years old and are already millionaires. But how many hours are these kids working? Do the parents keep all the money? Is it still playing when you’re making money?
Protection
There are a lot of laws about child labour. The problem is that the laws aren’t keeping up with our technology. The laws involving kidfluencer are in many countries almost not existing. Most of these kids work from home, so no one can regulate the number of hours they work. At the moment, we’re putting all the power in the parent’s hands and just assume they will do the right thing. It would be naive to believe that that is the reality when we have the numbers to contradict it. 119.000 children are getting abused at home. Children need to be protected, and there should be clear laws.
Is it really work?
This is the one-million-dollar question. Sheila James Kuehl is a former child star and co-author of the 1999 law that overhauled California’s labour protections for child performers. She said the following thing: ‘I don’t care if it’s simply unboxing presents, that’s work.’ Many experts agree with her. They say it is time to take a look at the ways parents or other adults are making money off the minors’ performance or work. These kids are not getting legal protection just because they work from home. Some even say: “the situation is a bit like Uber but for …. Child labour.”
The parents of the kidfluencers Alexis and Ava stress that they do all the work and not their children. A lot of parents have said the same thing. They make the videos and create the content; their children only work when they are in front of the camera. They also say their kids love to be in front of the camera and that they aren’t forced. Bee Fisher, a mom of 3 famous Instagrammers, says she never forces her kids into anything. If they don’t feel like making videos or photos, then we don’t have to, BUT, she said if it is a paid job, then they don’t have a choice. This s very dangerous, where do you draw the line? How many paid jobs do they have? It is often the parents who decided which deals they take, and which jobs their children do.
Abused kids
In the last few years, more and more horror stories about parents abusing their kids for fame have been popping up. Last year a woman was arrested and accused of abusing her children to star on her YouTube channel called ‘Fantastic Adventures’. She would use pepper spray if they forgot their lines; she took them out of school and often didn’t feed them. In 2017 a family was investigated after posting a video in which they pranked their kids. It ended up with the kids hysterical crying after the parents had been screaming in their faces. Another family was charged with child endangerment for putting their eight-year-old and his nanny in the bed of a pickup truck filled with water and gel beads and cruising around a small town in southern California. I’m not saying that all Kidfluencers are the victim of child labour. But there must be more laws so things like this can’t happen. The laws need to make sure that kids are always protected.
Money
Kidfluencer, make a lot of money or well their parents do. What happens to the money these kids make? For example, the parents of kidfluencer Everleigh were asked what happens to the money and whether they had a saving account for their daughter. They did not answer these questions, which makes us wonder: do they keep all the money for themselves? There is something called a Coogan Account. Named after Jackie Coogan, who took action after he couldn’t access the money, he had made as a child. At the time, everything a child earned before the age of 21 was legally the parent’s money. With the Coogan Account, parents must put 15% of the earnings into the account which the child would gain access to at the age of 21. Parents can use the other 85% to take care of their children and give themselves a salary, but the money is technically still the child’s. At that young age, kids are not worrying about money, let alone thinking about to who it belongs.
France took action
In October, France took legal action to protect its young influencers. The new legislation makes sure that children don’t have to work too much and that their earnings will be blocked on an account until they are 16. It also gives them the right to delete all images and videos in which they appeared as a child. France is the first country in the EU to make legal changes to protect young influencers. We can only hope that other countries will follow their example.
We can conclude that there are still many questions to be answered and a lot of action to be taken. Young influencers are not legally protected from child labour. A lot of kidfluencer are very happy and love their ‘job’, but there must be clear rules. The line is blurry, and when it comes to protecting children, you can never be safe enough.
sources: