ABSTRACT

New Forms of Chıld Labor: Chıld Actors Parallel to the changing world, our values, specifically the values we attribute to children has been transforming. Societies implement precautions for protecting the rights of children. The most known of these measures focuses on the employment of children. Despite the precautionary practices, child labor cannot be abolished and besides, its novel forms are emerging. In recent times increasing numbers of children are being employed in media which is an example to this case. Nevertheless, it is self-evident that this situation is neither considered to be a problem nor being discussed as a contemporary dimension of child labor or child exploitation by the general public. This study concentrates on the children employed in media. The aim is to initiate a discussion about the children’s employment in this field and draw attention to the unobtrusive dangers that this phenomenon involves. Due to the fact that most of the work done by the children is carried in the backstage and because of the specificities of the laboring process, the fact that those children are put to labor remains unrecognized. Therefore the labor of child actors, the nature of their work and the conditions under which they are employed is widely unnoticed. In this study, how child actors whom we watch in commercials, TV series or movies enter the business, their struggle to prove themselves and remain in the business, and their experiences are investigated. Moreover, the questions why the general public normalize and show sympathy to the laboring of children in media and what the motivations are for the parents who put their children to work in this sector, are explored. In order to carry out this research agenda, indepth interviews were conducted with the mothers who have registered their children to casting agencies. In this way, the mothers’ motivations and the internal functioning of the agencies are tried to be grasped. Besides, for achieving a better understanding about the sector, a former casting agent owner was interviewed. Another aspect of the children’s employment in the entertainment sector is concerned with the state’s position. If the state accepts that these children are being employed, does it implement appropriate legal regulations and inspect the children’s working conditions or does the state overlook the laboring children in the entertainment business? In conclusion, through the data gathered in this research, it is asserted that the world of child actors are not as rose-colored as the worlds that they act in and represent on the screen and the many problems which this phenomenon is entangled with are tried to be brought into view