Child Pawn

Many of us get radical around the exploitation of children in the chocolate (cocoa) plantations and diamond mines. I only drink Fair Trade tea and coffee. I comment when I serve it, “No children were harmed in the making of this coffee/chocolate.” Many of us devote our lives to ending the exploitation of children. We work for low wages, put up with appalling abuse and trudge through the shit of life. Many of us scream when children’s clothing metaphorically or literally says, “Porn Star, come love me.” Many of us take up the protection of children because we believe that kids have the right to have a childhood free of fear, abuse and exploitation. I believe this. I work for this!

I wonder at the use of children in advertising and marketing. How far do corporations go before the children become corporate pawns? Where is that line between the playground and the pawn shop where we sell our kids for a solution to our business needs?

I recently watched some “marganalised” children, rounded up from a low socio economic neighbourhood, coached and trained to voluntarily entertain the Elderly for Halloween (the elderly being the older people in a rather affluent neighbourhood). A nice thing to do, yes? A good thing even because the kids learnt some skills, their self esteem may have been positively impacted and they got to see an alternative way to live life (in affluence ). However, the poor children did not get paid for their entertainment but the specifically recruited project manager and event coordinator did….and they then used the pictures of the children in their brochure advertising for their event management business.The pictures were used to display the excellent corporate social responsibility of the event company: to showcase that it is a good thing to round up kids from poor families and parade them in front of the rich so the rich can feel good and the poor can feel richer for the experience.

Ummm….children in the diamond mines don’t get paid for their performance but the organisers do. Is their a parallel here? Is the West capitalist society reframing child labour as acceptable entertainment and skill acquisition?

The children’s show was so fantastic that, many external agencies booked the “margainalised” kids up to come and perform for them at Christmas bonanzas and Carol nights…no remuneration, no recognition of the time these children have to practice and stay in a controlled emotional state, no thought that we might be exploiting these children, again. The children were booked because charity is good, helping others less fortunate is a nice thing to do. Giving the poor families a break, a chance, an opportunity is all that is needed to fulfil social responsibility.

What about the cost of petrol for the parents to get these kids to practices and events. What about the cost of the new brush, the new clothes, the new social graces so that kids and their parents felt less different in flash surroundings. What about the cost of child abuse to get these kids to perform?

As I thought my discomfort through and watched a clutch of well meaning businesses bobbing around the children, kissing, hugging and congratulating them, my mind conjured up a crutch of pimps all trying to win up the kids to do a blow job on their vessel.

Child Pawn came to mind: the exchange of children’s performance for a need. If opportunistic prostitution is the exchange of sex for a commodity (hot meal, roof over the head, shower, etc) what is the exchange of children’s performance for business gain???

Am I being too sensitive to child protection here or have I just witnessed the exploitation of children?

Other articles to help you think about how we allow our children to be used as pawns:

Corporate Pedophillia

Coffee, Tea and Chocolate for Child Protection

Jay Jay’s is the little loser

Revealing Children’s Fashion

Reuters knife Dolce and Gabbana

This article is dramatised and is a combination of witnessed events. The reflections and analysis are my own. Any similarlity to people or events is purely accidental.