Legalizing child labor in blogging and IT: pros and cons

Abandoning temptation is not easy, despite legal prohibitions.

In Russian society, heated discussions continue about whether it is necessary to legalize child labor in the IT sphere.

In fact, children today already at the primary level of school earn on the Internet and it is impossible to stop this global global process by stomping from the stands. On the other hand, the fears of parents are understandable - they are worried that children will abandon their studies, fall into destructive Internet addiction, or completely devote themselves to the senseless and merciless "cooking of content" in Tiktoker parties.

In disputes on this topic, one side insists that until adulthood, the child's priority should be study, not work. Their opponents talk about the global and irreversible transformation of the world, which was initiated by the development of IT technologies. The legal norms of an industrial society are outdated and require revision, and a gadget in a child's hand is not a demonic thing, but an ordinary "magnifying glass" of the information age, which helps a child to seek and find his way of life, they say.

How can the dilemma be resolved? Is it time to revise the legislation on child labor?

In August of this year, pupils of the Moscow children's creative camp turned to the chairman of the State Duma committee on family, women and children, Tamara Pletneva, with a request to amend the Labor Code regarding provisions on child labor. The applicants ask to allow children and adolescents to work and manage their earned children independently, without going through troublesome and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures and obtaining written consent from parents and guardianship authorities.

Igor Pugachev, director of the SportZania camp, told Novy Izvestia about this. According to him, pupils of creative blogging shifts shared their thoughts and disappointments with him: Internet platforms open up great prospects for growth, but the opportunities under 18 and after 18 are unequal. Minors cannot receive donations, sell ads or otherwise monetize their channels.

According to a camp spokesman, dozens of schoolchildren have asked for assistance in bringing their position to legislators. The director sent an appeal to the website of the State Duma on August 25.

The list of "children's professions" has expanded in recent years thanks to the Internet - schoolchildren make money on TikTok and Youtube channels, streaming, writing programs, creating games and music.

The problem is that it is quite difficult to officially formalize children's earnings in Russia, and in other countries as well. Up to 14 years old, to sign a contract with a company, you will need permission not only from parents, but also from the guardianship and guardianship authorities. The companies themselves, taking advantage of this state of affairs, use gray schemes to attract child employees, avoid formal labor relations.

Social networks and video hosting services do not accept persons under the age of 18 into the Affiliate Program, that is, an advertising or sponsorship contract can only be concluded by a parent.

International IT companies also literally hunt for children's minds that are able to offer uncommon and clean solutions for their business. For example, programming and robotics contests are held, where children present their projects.

"According to HeadHunter research, the earlier a person starts working, the faster he achieves career growth and higher wages. In my opinion, it is necessary not only to legalize child labor, but also to promote its development in every possible way - to motivate the younger generation to engage in entrepreneurship and think about a career from school. The fastest way to achieve this is in close collaboration with the business. Eichars here, of course, pursue their own goals - they conclude labor contracts with the best trainees. For these purposes, internship programs are being developed at enterprises, technology competitions are held with prizes in the form of grants. By inviting young people to line positions, the company gets a motivated employee capable of rapid advancement due to his high learning ability and clear vision of the future”, - says Nikita Dodonov, head of the food entrepreneurship development platform for schoolchildren and students at Food Council.

In turn, business employees, even highly qualified ones, because of already "earned" patterns and stereotypes, are in dire need of mastering new technologies and professional retraining caused by digitalization. Today's children and adolescents are already born in the digital world, moreover, they shape it, and in this sense, for senior employees, they are the best guides to this brave new world.

Another problem is that talented children with competitive ideas cannot be enrolled in full-fledged participants in grant programs for young scientists, and all cash receipts and prizes go through their parents or mentors.

And it's also good if the parents support their child in these aspirations, if not, then the child becomes a hostage of the situation, which, without the written permission of the parents, cannot realize his knowledge and ambitions and receive a well-deserved grant. There are known cases of theft from children, when mentors or parents appropriated material incentives or shared with children only a part of their earnings, referring, by the way, to the law.

"Minors between the ages of 14-18 have the right to independently, without parental consent, exercise copyright to works of science, literature or art, inventions or other legally protected result of their intellectual activity”, - objected an intellectual property specialist, a member of the Sokol Bar Association Ivan Khomenko.

Most of the popular social networks and video hosting sites are foreign companies that have their own user agreements, policies and rules, including those concerning minors. For example, TikTok considers anyone under the age of 18 to be underage. Most likely, these companies will continue to refuse to accept persons under the age of 18 into the Partner Program, even if the Russian Federation introduces some changes in the age limit in its legislation. Maybe this is fortunately, says Khomenko. Obviously, maintaining TikTok and Youtube channels, launching streams, etc. - this is, for the most part, not about programming, robotics, not about brilliant creative thought and intellectual achievements, and not even those areas of activity that minors should focus on to the detriment of their studies, the expert believes.

International instruments recognize child labor as largely a consequence of poverty. The solution to the problem lies in developing the economy and raising the level of education. The elimination of child labor and the raising of the minimum age of employment are part of measures to protect the interests of children. However, light work during the holidays is considered by law as a component of education, as the acquisition of practical life skills. And in this part, which does not contradict international acts, the Russian legislator and law enforcement officer has something to work on, for example, to provide mechanisms for the simplest possible interaction between an employer and a teenager during vacation periods, says Victoria Bessonova, a lawyer and founder of the BonaFides law office.

The participation of children in this or that productive work is one of the ancient and fundamental questions of various educational systems. The world famous teacher Anton Makarenko reflected on these things in his wonderful works "Pedagogical Poem" and "Flags on Towers", where he described, for example, how street children invented cameras. Immersion in the creative process became a very important and effective way of transforming the lives of these street children. As a result of this work, their personalities were formed - individuals who, having passed a difficult path, could independently make decisions and understand that their own fate depends on their actions, - comments the teacher, Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of Personality Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University. V. Lomonosov Alexander Asmolov:

- All today's disputes about child labor are connected with the fact that society hardly considers the child as the author of their own destiny, so children more and more become those who are looking for their path in life, not focusing on the recipes that adults and the surrounding adult world offer them...

Already in the 20th century, where there was still no widespread Internet, the outstanding anthropologist, ethnographer, researcher of the processes of socialization of children and adolescents, Margaret Mead, spoke about the emergence of a new world where children, in contrast to the instructive model of culture, begin to ask their elders: “What right do you have to teach us how to live? " In the transformed world, the child becomes the subject of his own development and education process at a very early age.

The risk of our society (which comes even before our children are 12-14 years old) is not that children begin to make a living and manage money, but in a huge mental gap between generations. This is the real fuse of our society, which needs to be really taken care of, says the teacher.

Camp director Igor Pugachev notes that now almost all children's summer camps are allowed to use telephones or laptops for no more than 1 hour a day, such restrictions are dictated by the requirements of state sanitary standards. At the same time, such instructions from the authorities already look like an atavism. The greatest demand is among children and adolescents themselves - for creative shifts, where they promise to learn special programs - how to create TikTok or Youtube channels, shoot and edit videos for them, monetize blogs, follow trends, write programs, etc.

- We see that such a decision is ripe and we want the legislative bodies to analyze all possible risks and revise the regulations. Children can create powerful ideas and projects, they can successfully work in IT, and many are already doing all this. Therefore, it is important that they are protected and do not break the law by working in gray, says Pugachev.

- In my opinion, both in the current education process, and in the normative documents, and in the legislative base, serious changes are needed, where the postulate of giving the child the right to choose himself / herself will be sewn as a red thread. The famous Polish educator, writer and doctor, the inspirer of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Janusz Korczak informed us that a child, if we want to raise a full-fledged personality, from the age of three must have an inalienable right of the individual - the right to choose, and I also stand on this - as a psychologist and as a parent who will never tell other people's children and grandchildren how to live.

You see, a child, giving preference to different activities, chooses not work. He chooses his life strategy. And when we, adults, say: “Don't touch the gadget,” we make a big mistake - we want them to live like us. I always look with sadness at those adults who look at children and know what is best for them”, - emphasizes Alexander Asmolov.

Prohibitions, including legislative ones, are ineffective if the surrounding reality is fundamentally different. Teenagers see how, for example, Danya Milokhin, making money on Instagram and TikTok, buys a Maybach for 10 million rubles, and they want it too.

Aren't they grown-up uncles - from well-known companies and brands of the PepsiCo level ( Mail.ru Group in Russia ), for example, pursuing their marketing goals, conclude contracts with children for insane amounts of 300,000 to 4 million rubles a month? Is it not grown-up uncles who create Tiktoker houses , and by stimulating round-the-clock child labor there, they charge the children a commission "for the given opportunity?"

Parents, by the way, were also divided into two camps.

Some fully support their children who have gone into the IT business and even hire producers for them or send them to Tik-Tok hostels. Other parents believe that children should go to school and not work (as an option, spend hours "suffering from nonsense" on the Internet).

"On the one hand, teenagers need their own money. Some children seek independence through deceptively easy money - in crimes. Internet employment looks harmless by comparison. On the other hand, internet addiction hinders development, learning and personality formation. Modern life requires many tools: the ability to analyze, rebuild, find information, self-educate. One of the main tasks of the school is not just to give knowledge, but to teach children to independently develop and educate themselves after graduation. The parents' business, I agree, is to provide the child with the highest quality education, which will open many doors for him. TikTok in this context is a short-term history, the foam will subside. But... in return, most likely, a new wave will come", - says Victoria Bessonova, founder of the law firm BonaFides.

"It seems to me that the center of the problem is not in the transition from gray wage schemes to the legal channel. Not recognizing a 10-year-old or a 13-year-old as an income recipient. You can move the age bar down as much as you like, as if making children look older and not seeing really important things. What, in fact, does a blogger boy or girl earn? Who does he focus on in his content: a prankster spraying the contents of a pepper spray in the face of a disabled person for fun, a grimacing guy posing as a homosexual, or someone else? Now the terms "making money on the Internet" and "blogging" can mean anything from selling drugs to running a legitimate business. Unfortunately, high earnings in blogging do not always directly depend on the usefulness of blogging content. The vulgarity, hatred, rudeness, stupidity, mockery "also go well" with a certain public. And they generate income. Do we (parents, society, the state) need to make such an income received by a teenager "reported salary"?', - says lawyer Oleg Matyunin.

"The general age of administrative and criminal responsibility is 16 years. What does it mean? Having fully legalized the independent receipt of income from blogging from the age of 14 or earlier, having freed young entrepreneurs from the control of parents, guardianship authorities, we may face the fact that a young producer of shock content that promotes something that is not at all worth promoting will still become legal sense of irresponsible. Imagine: he is 13, he maintains a blog in which he insults viewers, swears, arranges hooligan pranks in public places, beats people, advertises cryptocurrency, financial pyramids. And he receives directly payments from customers, donators, advertisers, and officially pays taxes to the state budget. Is it fine?", - the expert asks.

Should Gutenberg be blamed for what is printed in the books? Should we blame the trains, which carry sometimes wonderful people, sometimes crooks and thieves? Should we blame the soil, on which, once at a time, it is not necessary, a noble culture, or a weed grows?

All these exhortations about the prohibition of the dangerous Internet resemble the reasoning of the narrow-minded mind of Griboyedov's character: "If evil is suppressed: Take all the books and burn them." And here also - if evil was suppressed, it would be better to prohibit the Internet for children. But it is not the Internet that is to blame for the fact that it contains evil, pornography, drugs, and it is definitely not the children who invented everything", - emphasizes the teacher Alexander Asmolov:

"This is all the property and reflection of the social system in which we live. The internet is not to blame for those vile streaming footage that gives the blogger an edge and is rewarded with money. This society fosters aggression, but at such a pace that it has already become the norm for our teenagers. And in this sense, when I watch State Duma meetings or some TV shows, I understand that it is clearly not necessary to start with something to prohibit children or isolate them from our own created society. It is necessary to start with the eradication of the idea, cultivated and probably beneficial to someone, that the pouring streams of hatred and anger are good. Are the children to blame for the fact that politicians, who are alien to philanthropy, go out of their way and tear up one place in order to get and sit in some kind of armchair? No, not children. This is the diagnosis of our society, which gives rise to such phenomena".

To prohibit children from the Internet - I call this reaction of the adult society "Taliban" (the movement is recognized as terrorist and is prohibited in the Russian Federation and other countries). Can be forced to wear a burqa. Parents can tell the child that only they decide what grants he will receive. In both situations, the dependent party is turned into property, the person is forgotten, who must follow his own path. God grant us to protect children from this adult "Taliban" (the movement is recognized as terrorist and is prohibited in the Russian Federation and other countries).

Reference. What does international law say about child labor?

The International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 concerning the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment was adopted in Geneva in 1973. It revised the provisions of a number of Conventions and established a minimum age for employment of 14 years. At the same time, the recommended minimum age of employment in developed countries should not be lower than the age of completion of compulsory schooling, the desirable limit is 15 years. The convention indicates that the age may be lowered for light work. At the same time, even light work should not damage school attendance. Each of the States Parties to the Convention has indicated what the minimum age it will establish. Russia has indicated the minimum age of 14 for employment.

Also in 1973, the ILO adopted Recommendation No. 146 on the minimum age for admission to employment. Special efforts were made to raise the minimum age for employment to 15 years in all countries, the principle was put at the forefront: first, getting a full school education, and only then hired labor.

The 1973 Convention and Recommendations are considered fundamental international instruments in the field of child labor.

In 1999, the Convention on the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor was adopted. A child in the meaning of the Convention is a person under 18 years of age. Particular attention is paid to the need for children to receive general school education. When adopting the norms governing child labor in Russia, the domestic legislator tried to comply with the requirements of international standards.

Of course, in 1973, there could be no talk of involving children in the field of IT technologies. Countries were unable to predict the state of the modern world.

But it appears that the International Labor Organization remains true to its principles and does not intend to fundamentally revise the provisions on child labor.

2021 has been declared the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor. The organization called for the urgent elimination of forced labor, slavery and human trafficking, and the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor. The ILO recalled the commitments made by States to end child labor in all its forms by 2025 and called for the elimination of poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030.