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Originally posted by Druscillareply to post by FreedomEnteredWhat do the parents of these teens have to say? They're still legal guardians & have say so over what their children do, right? I would think anyone under the age of legal consent & responsibility would fall under the jurisdiction of their parents & if there's any question of abuse, it should then also fall on them. These models don't have to be models. They could just as well apply themselves toward getting an education in a field that pays just as well. I'm not going to shed any tears over anyone that hurts themselves because being pretty is more important than having an education.
Parents of these minors have nothing to say because 95% of the time, they're stage parents that push their kids into the fashion & entertainment industries because to them, their kid is a beautiful, talented paycheck for them to cash in on for as long as possible through any means necessary.
I don't disagree with this, but surely there is only a relatively small window of time during which models are vulnerable to such exploitation?For a young girl to model adult clothing, or appear in ads targeting adult consumers, she obviously can't appear too young. It's true that girls as young as 14 have been recruited as fashion models in the past, but I imagine 16 is a more likely minimum age for recruitment (it is also the lower limit for models in NY City, according to this discussion on age limits for models).
So these kids are exploited for about two years before they can stand up for themselves. Yes, that's quite long enough to set up a response cycle of habitual submission to abuse, but when the model turns 18 she becomes responsible for herself in law. Any kind of coercion after that falls under general laws governing the exploitation of labour, which are already pretty comprehensive and regularly enforced in civilised countries.
I think legislating a lower age limit for catwalk fashion models would be sufficient to deal with the worst abuses of the fashion industry. Unfortunately, stage parents have existed since the mother of the Byzantine Empress Theodora presented her daughters as mascots to the Blue faction in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. They will never go away and there is not a great deal that can be done about them. Show business is what it is, and Mrs. Worthington and her ilk will always be with us.
Alway, who was one of three finalists on the program in 2007, was arrested June 28 and charged with first and second degree burglary, fraud and committing a felony while released on bail. Police say they found her hiding while armed in the garage of an unoccupied home whose owners were out of the country after concerned neighbors reported seeing a suspicious-looking woman walking around.