Paul Petersen called it "the worst serial workplace violation since children were lifted from English coal mines in 1812."
The former child star of the "The Donna Reid Show" also blasted those involved for engaging in "a criminal conspiracy to deprive children of their right to be free from commercial exploitation."
When Petersen talks about children working in the entertainment industry, one is well-advised to pay attention. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, including the abuses to which generations of young performers have been subjected, Petersen is a passionate advocate for critically needed reforms.
The organization that he founded in 1990, "A Minor Consideration," is the go-to source for everything of significance concerning children employed in a very risky business.
Petersen's ire was directed at "Kid Nation," a reality show currently being aired by CBS-TV on Wednesday evenings at 8 p.m.
Although not the blockbuster hit envisioned by network executives, "Kid Nation" is doing well enough in the ratings for children to be auditioned for a planned second season. That's bad news because this exploitive, predatory production is so riddled with serious legal problems and disturbing ethical questions that the first season should have been left to die in the desert sun.
For the production of "Kid Nation," 40 children, ages 8 to 15, were brought to Bonanza City, billed as a New Mexico "ghost town" from the 19th century, and given 40 days to turn it into a thriving community by "fixing their forefathers' mistakes."
Isolated from their parents for the entire time and deprived of modern conveniences, they were required to do such things as cook their own meals, clean outhouses, haul heavy wagons over long distances, and establish their own government.
Except for when they were undressed, the youngsters were on camera for more than 14 hours every single day, in some instances from 7 a.m. to midnight. Although the production was filmed in its entirety during the school year, there were no teachers on the set and no education provided.
The production staff points out that a safety net of adults were standing by at all times. Still, several children required medical treatment after they drank bleach that was inadvertently left in an unlabelled soda bottle. Another youngster was burned on the face with hot grease.
THE CONTRACT
Each child appearing in "Kid Nation" received $5,000 which, when apportioned over the 960 hours to which the producers will concede that they were filmed, amounts to less than the minimum wage.
Parents were required to sign an exhaustive, finely detailed contract which, among other things, exonerated the producers from liability for any injury sustained by a child for any reason whatsoever, including failure to provide adequate medical care or safe housing.
The parents also surrendered the rights to their children's stories, "in perpetuity and throughout the universe," and further consented to those stories being fictionalized either in whole or in part.
Despite the phony hype, Bonanza City was not chosen because it's a ghost town -- most of its buildings were constructed in the last 20 years -- but rather because it is in New Mexico, a state which, prior to the "Kid Nation" fiasco, provided little protection to child actors.
Still, in a laughable response to mounting criticism, the producers claim that the children aren't really performers but merely kids attending "summer camp." They also maintain that the $5,000 paid to each child was not compensation for services rendered, but a stipend for some other nebulous purpose.
"Kid Nation" is making money for its producers and CBS while the children who made it happen were paid peanuts, deprived of an education, placed in physical and emotional jeopardy, stripped of their privacy rights, and had their personal stories given away forever.
Apparently hypnotized by show biz's lure, parents from around the country shipped their children to New Mexico and completely entrusted them to an array of perfect strangers for six weeks.
"Kid Nation" couldn't have been filmed in most states because the entire production violated what has become fairly standard legal requirements for the employment of young performers. These strictly limit the number of hours a child may work each week, mandate that a parent or guardian be within sight and sound of the child at all time, and require that a teacher be on the set to meet the youngster's educational needs.
New Mexico has since amended its laws so that if there is a second season of "Kid Nation," it won't be filmed there either. Still, the protection of young performers should be a matter specifically addressed at the national level. There is obviously something very wrong when producers, intoxicated with visions of power and profit, are free to scour the nation in search of the easiest state in which to exploit a child.
Source: The Staten Island Advance.
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