Saumya Yadav

Introduction

While we were quietly scrolling our social media feeds, there was a silent revolution taking place- the gradual rise of ‘kidfluencers’, i.e. Kids who are routinely creating social media content. While there is no official data, some unofficial reports suggest the kidfluencers market to be approximately 150-200 crores, justifying the media used term ‘kidfluencers boom’ These young content creators are sometimes as young as 3 years old and can barely pronounce their name. The content shared by them range from simply being playful, talking in their baby voice, singing, dancing, toy reviews, cooking or even makeup tutorials. The apparent reason for the sudden rise is kids creating content seems to be the quick reward it offers. All one needs is a basic camera, a social media account and basic digital skills. A child simply being playful on camera attracts more attention compared to an adult content creator. Since attention is the only currency in the influencer market, the earnings proportionately rise as the number of views increase. These earnings primarily come from the viewership and the brand sponsorships and collaborations these kidfluencers get. Consequently, the act of a child being playful on social media does not exist as an isolated activity of leisure but emerges as a political site when taken with structures of labor, agency, and the commodification of childhood.

The primary objective of this blog is to reposition kidfluencing as a site of labor and critically engage with the Child and Adolescent Labor (Protection and Regulation) Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as the 1986 Act) to assess whether the institutional and State protection in the Act are sufficient to cover emerging forms of child labor such as kidfluencing. However, this blog moves beyond the simple question of whether kidfluencers can be protected within the 1986 Act and engages with larger discursive questions around children’s agency, parens patriae and immaterial labor which emerge with kidfluencing.

Emerging Forms of Labor

What appears to be a spontaneous play, or activity does not remain so once it is recorded, circulated online and ultimately monetised as it then transforms into productive labor. Kidfluencing, therefore progressively blurs the line between leisure and labor as the activities, emotions, or sometimes mere appearances of a child become commodities in the influencer market. Unlike traditional forms of labor, kidinfluencing does not need a recognized establishment or employer-employee structure to exist. It exists simply within the confines of home and is often managed primarily by family members of the kidfluencer thus making it appear largely as a family activity or affair. Such deviation from traditional labor models has contributed to obscuring the position of these kids as vulnerable workers in an industry. Scholars like, Lazzarato have increasingly examined forms of immaterial labor in which the production of value is derived not merely from physical effort but also from communication, affect, creativity, and social interaction. Kidfluencing extends this understanding further by placing childhood itself within digital production and commodification. Yet, the specific position of kidfluencers within this discourse remains comparatively underexplored.

This scholarly marginalisation is accompanied by a corresponding regulatory gap. In India, existing child-labor frameworks do not comprehensively address the distinctive forms of labor, income generation, privacy risks, and parental control involved in kidfluencing. Consequently, children participating in monetised digital content creation remain insufficiently recognized and protected as workers, even where their activities generate economic value.

Legal Framework around Child Labor

Historically, child labor laws across jurisdictions have been drawn upon the discursive understanding of children as a vulnerable group without agency, which require protection. Drawing upon this discursive foundation, child labor has largely emerged as something children need to be protected from. In India, the Constitution vide Article 24 prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in any factory, mine or their engagement in any other hazardous employment (Constitution of India, 1950).⁴ Consequently, the 1986 Act was passed by the Parliament which prohibited the employment of children below 14 years of age; and regulated the employment of adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 years. The 1986 Act completely prohibits the employment of both children and adolescents in any of the hazardous occupations.

The 1986 Act is drawn upon a traditional understanding of work and labor and is based upon an employer-workplace model. Consequently, the Act excludes working within a family enterprise from its scope. Furthermore, children working in the audio-visual entertainment industry have also been excluded from the purview of the Act. Thus, the provisions of the Act prohibiting the employment of children do not apply where-

1. The child is helping his family or working in the family enterprise (other than any hazardous occupations or processes as given under the Act) after his school hours or during vacations.
2. The child works as an artist in the audio-visual entertainment industry except the circus.

The 1986 Act also imposes an obligation that the permitted work shall not affect the school education of the child. The Schedule appended to the 1986 Act lists down hazardous occupations and processes in which adolescents are prohibited from working and children are prohibited from helping. Notably, the occupations and processes mentioned in the Schedule are time to time notified by the Central Government.

The abovementioned framework when read along with its exceptions confines the understanding of work and labor within rigid boundaries largely based upon a definite employer and a definite place of work, i.e. establishment. The Act is based upon a protectionist model seeking to abolish child labor for children and regulate it in case of adolescents. However, in the contemporary economy, the classical meanings of work and labor have undergone a substantial change where the concept of labor is no longer confined to production of some tangible quality or is performed at some definite workplace and employer. Children producing digital content does not produce anything tangible but only affects in the mind of people. Additionally, kidfluencing does not involve any recognized workplace, it primarily takes place within the premise of home itself. Similarly, there is no recognized employer or manager, it is the family, primarily mother who performs the role of manager. Thus, in the case of kidfluencing, leisure itself becomes labor and home becomes the establishment where labor is being performed. Due to these peculiar characteristics, the 1986 Act in its existing framework appears to be insufficient to regulate Kidfluencers because the Act does not recognise their work as ‘child labor’.

Rethinking Regulations Through the New Sociology of Childhood

Policy discourse on child labor is primarily based upon the idea of children as a homogenous vulnerable group which requires protection. The conventional understanding of children does not ascribe any agency to them mainly due to their physiological underdevelopment. However, this idea faced the most vehement challenge in the 1990s with the emergence of New Sociology of childhood, developed mainly by two scholars Allison James and Alan Prout in the early 21^st century. The new sociology of childhood conceptualizes children as active social agents which have the capability of affecting and being affected by their environment. The traditional protectionist model of child labor laws stands in deviation of new sociology of childhood which does not consider children’s agency. This tension between vulnerability and agency comes to forefront in the case of kidfluencers. How does one make sense of the fact that a kid might not actually see content creation as labor or exploitation but is voluntarily doing so in place of schooling? Thus, conceptualizing each child engaged in content creation overlooks the nuances of child labor and the politics of children’s agency. Such reductionist approach also treats children as a homogenous group equally vulnerable, whereas scholarship has shown that children’s vulnerabilities are differential and actively framed by caste, class, gender, ethnicity, etc. Notable, while ascribing agency to children, the new sociology of childhood does not seek to argue that children are free from exploitation or do not need protection. This poses a significant challenge in rethinking any child labor regulation including that in India, i.e. how and to what extend children need to be protected and who gets to decide the harm against which children need protection. Thus, when drawn upon the new sociology of childhood, child labor emerges as a contested site wherein children’s agency and vulnerability appear to be in a constant state of tension. Another challenge which appears while rethinking child labor regulations is the role of parents. In the case of kidfluencers, parents or family who play the role of the manager have a significant economic interest in child’s activity. While parental involvement is not inherently exploitative, relying on parents’ consent and protection alone appears insufficient because in the case of kidfluencers, parental authority usually overlaps with economic interests in the activity.

Towards A Child-Centric Regulatory Policy

Policies based on a conventional understanding of work and labor are no longer sufficient to comprehensively protect children against any form of labor exploitation. The protectionist model upon which India based its child labor Law appear to be insufficient to regulate new and emerging forms of labor such as digital content creation. Moreover, with the emergence of new sociology of childhood, the existing protectionist model fails to address the agency being ascribed to children along with acknowledging their vulnerabilities. Another question which further complicates the regulatory aspect of child labor is the extent to which State may interfere and regulate the lives of children. The new sociology of childhood also stands as a challenge to the doctrinal principle of parens patriae which justifies state intervention in the lives of children. In the existing child labor law, children do not have any voice. It is the state which decides what is hazardous for them and what is permitted. Any reform within this same protectionist model risks over-inclusivity and overlooking the heterogeneity within the group ‘children’.

Any regulatory intervention must therefore move beyond the tension of protection and participation and recognise that children can possess agency while simultaneously remaining vulnerable to exploitation. A child-centric regulatory framework for kidfluencers should be based on three principles. First, recognition of labor: not every appearance of a child on social media should constitute child labor. Only activities where a child’s time, performance, personality, or image is systematically used to generate commercial value need to be regulated.

Second, meaningful participation: Due consideration should be given to children’s voice in decisions concerning their participation, in accordance with their age and maturity. However, the State must continue to protect children against exploitation even where participation appears voluntary.

Third, regulation of parental economic interests: parental consent cannot be treated as an adequate safeguard where parents simultaneously act as guardians, managers and beneficiaries of the child’s earnings. Regulation must therefore ensure transparency in earnings, protection of the child’s financial interests and reasonable limits on the time devoted to commercial content creation.

Such a framework would also require responsibility to be distributed beyond the family to the commercial actors and digital platforms that derive economic value from children’s content. The objective should not be to prohibit children from participating in digital spaces, but to ensure that such participation does not convert childhood itself into an unregulated source of commercial value.

The author is an Assistant Professor at UPES School of Law, Dehradun. She can be reached at saumya.yadav@ddn.upes.ac.in