Child labor in show business

When people talk about child laborers, they generally refer to juvenile sakada workers, house-help, watch-your-car boys, little sampaguita vendors, port area baggage kids and beggars. Some people in show business, however, hope that child stars and starlets will soon be added to that list.

That may appear to be a weird hope to articulate, since child performers are generally thought to be cute, happy creatures blessed with good looks, talent, popularity—
and the precocious ability to make loads of money for themselves and their loved ones.

Aye, there’s the rub. Because, truth to tell, some young performers are made to work too hard by their adult guardians and mentors, who are determined to make the most money out of them and their angelic looks and pubescence.

True, official safeguards and limitations have been instituted to protect child performers from being overworked to the point of exhaustion and premature loss of their all-important sense of childlike fun and wonder. Unfortunately, those safeguards are sometimes practiced more in the breach than in the observance, so concerned observers shouldn’t let down their guard.

As a TV-film veteran notes, those safeguards (kids shouldn’t be made to work for more than four hours a day, etc.) are OK when the taping or shooting schedule is light.

However, when things have to be rushed to meet a deadline, as they all too often do in the busy-busy biz, adults can be persuaded to look the other way and be “more understanding.”

As for the child performers themselves, they’ve been trained to be obedient, so as not to acquire a reputation for being a “cause of delay” (a deadly indictment in show business), so they just go with the flow.

It’s bad enough that some child talents aren’t given enough time to rest, play, study and just be kids; it’s worse when they’re deprived of control over the money they make.

Since they generally make more money than their parents or guardians, who often come from impoverished circumstances, some child talents end up becoming breadwinners. Thus, the money they make doesn’t go into a trust fund for their future use; it is spent to pay for their relatives’ daily expenses or splurge.

Worst off are the kids whose elders quit what little work they have and just rely on the child talents’ performing fees. Some children dutifully agree to this unjust arrangement, but eventually end up resenting it.

What can be done to alleviate their plight? Social workers need to implement official safeguards more strictly, and parents should be made to realize that they shouldn’t live off their children—it just isn’t right!

Children are children, and most of their time should be spent growing up and developing their abilities and psychological wellness, not in moneymaking labor. True, all sorts of “realities” obtrude and intrude, but that’s the bottom line. –Nestor Torre, Philippine Daily Inquirer