the report of the pilot project - International Labour Organization

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Report of the Pilot Research Project on Children Working in Cultural and Artistic Activities environment is too crowded with potential actors and they wait long hours for their turn to come. The child has a fever, crying and wants to leave. I said ‘there can be no shooting in this case, please come again tomorrow.’ After saying how long they have been waiting, the mother slapped her child and scolded him: ‘you have to take part in this shooting and do whatever you are told to.’ All parents think their children are cute and talented. If the family is too insistent, we still take the child in and have a shooting even when we are sure that he cannot be selected just for keeping them calm.” To the question about the working hours of children CA 2 says they work from 16:00 to 20:00 on 4-5 days of the week, adding that daily working hours may extend to 24:00 and 2:00 after midnight. His response to the question, “given the rights of the child, how should the working hours of the child be arranged?” is as follows: “Child actors should work only on Saturdays and Sundays. They must start working afternoon. Producers may violate the rights of children and act without any care concerning the child.” Underlining the need to keep daily working hours limited, CA 1 says, “Even infants realize that their environments are different than what they are accustomed to and they immediately react in an environment crowded with people, technical equipment and bright lights. He says directors only make momentary use of human resources disregarding prevailing conditions: “They rehearsed 14 hours for a commercial with dancing in, but had to wait 17 hours more since there was some delay in shooting. When it came to shooting, the director was mad at children for their unsatisfactory performance.” In his response to another question CA 1 says this type of employment is akin to slavery and went on as follows: “Actors are different from other workers in the set. To concentrate on their parts, they must wait their turn in a quiet and reasonable place. In fact, physical conditions in places where commercials are shot are reasonable; the problem is with relations and communication during actual work; the behaviour and speech of directors are problematic too. CA 3 drew attention to differences in the commercials sub-sector: “Conditions in the commercials sub-sector is better since it is better resourced. There are nurses and ambulances in sets. However, since payments are made on daily basis, the producer wants to fi nish is as soon as possible and this brings along a rather stressful environment. CA 2 summarized the working conditions of infants and made some suggestions for actors at this age: “Some special conditions must be in place when working with infants: hygienic rooms, nurse, shooting plans observing feeding and sleeping times, etc. In trials and repeated shootings model babies must be used. However, in practice children are kept in sets for twelve hours and consequently desired performance cannot be obtained. And if the director says ‘no shooting could be made’ then no payment is made...” Parties that are in some kind of business relationship with child actors say it is their priority to pervert child exploitation. CA 3 summarizes the case as follows: “The working conditions of the child actor selected are followed through information received from our colleagues in the set. Depending on the script, it is us who ask for pedagogue. Social security and acting coach depends on the priorities of the producer. Once there was daily insurance. While the social security law was being amended, families asked casting agencies for retirement benefi ts, but vagueness in the text of the law prevented - 27
Report of the Pilot Research Project on Children Working in Cultural and Artistic Activities any implementation. It is now up to the SGK (Social Security Agency) to give clear information about the possibilities for child actors to benefi t from the provisions of the law in effect.” Representatives of agencies affi liated with the Association of Casting Agencies say they are providing better terms of employment with their model contracts and actor request forms. However, they immediately add that in the absence of any binding legal basis, implementation of these contracts is rather diffi cult or even impossible. CA 3 explains the situation as follows: “The actor gets his cache as long as the process of fi lming is going on. His contract is terminated when the fi lm is completed. In case he leaves before the completion of the fi lm, he has to pay high amounts under the contract. In case circumstances change due to the education status of the child actors, things get problematic and we ask for a solution in such cases. There are some actors who cannot claim their rights under the contract since they are not given a copy of signed contract.” Casting agencies state that contracts arranged for child actors are similar in content to those for adult actors and include articles related to copyrights, working time and remuneration. CA 3 said: “Cache payment is made in return for appearance on the TV screen. The amount of this payment varies from 500 to 750 TL in commercials and it is in the range 250 to1000 TL for each episode in TV series. Additions to these include 20% as agency commission, 25% as withholding tax and 18% as VAT. Copyright is applicable in commercials. Contracts include the provision that the copyright for actors is applicable when there is an increase in channels. There are cache fees such as cinema +50% and billboard +50%. But actors inform us that some casting agencies do not pay these pluses. In contracts for TV series copyright agreement is made for a single work.” CA 2, an agency manager working with the commercials sector says: “Children are used more in commercials since it is more effective when a product is promoted by children. In contracts for commercials the rights of the child is protected better; for example, in case the time period specifi c in the contract is exceeded, we ask for a second day payment if we ever get any information about that. As agency, we have to follow how many times a specifi c commercial is in air in the TV. CA 1 adds: “No TV channel would say ‘we start it again and you have extra rights...” The owner of a casting agency, CA 3 says: “In contracts for TV series you have to accept the condition that the copyright is given to the broadcasting channel including repeat shows. Since payments are made on episode basis in TV series you may have to work 24 hours and 7 days a week. In case the series is removed from broadcasting there may be one or two episodes for which no payment is made. Work in the set is organized according to the lead actor, not to the child. Shootings are made on specifi c days and hours at locations for which permission is granted. If the timing coincides with the school hours of the child, families solve this problem by taking leave reports.” Common responses given by the managers of casting agencies to the question “what should families consider primarily?” can be summarized as follows: 28 - - The family must accompany the child for meals, dressing and other needs of the child until age 13.
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Page 5 and 6: PREFACE For over a decade, child la
Page 7 and 8: SUMMARY “Child labour” is an is
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