Children Protection in and from Art - Term Paper Example

Children Must Be Protected In and From Art This paper argues that children should be protected in and from art because the shocking and sexualized portrayal of children in contemporary art and media is harmful to their fragile minds and could be traumatizing in their later lives. Increasing protection of children in and from art is particularly important in today’s excessively permissive and liberal environment that significantly blurs the boundaries between life and artistic expression, amid the increasing concerns of child pornography and media reports of paedophilia. Even with the freedom of expression, artists and art-based organizations have an obligation to protect children’s rights and must abide within the legal and ethical confines of society in their artistic portrayal of children. Introduction Whereas society recognizes that painters and all other artists enjoy freedom of expression and take the same liberties as poets and madmen do, questions of legal and ethical considerations have always been raised concerning the portrayal of children in art (Cathcart, 2013). Artists are more likely to blur the boundaries between life and art, and in most cases, to the extent that they thoroughly upset social sensibilities and audience sensitivity. In the contemporary world, increasing consciousness of individuals’ entitlement to the freedom of expression has inevitably resulted to excessive permissiveness in society. Consequently, regulatory censorship in the contemporary civil society is often viewed negatively as it does undermine the immutable right of expression (Hsu, 2014); in that case, artistic expression has often taken many liberties at the expense of legal and ethical considerations. On one hand, it might seem that certain forms of contemporary expression must upset the social sensibilities and audience sensitivity thereby arousing sufficient discomfort, for their virtuous objectives to be achieved. Nevertheless, does it mean that the offensive forms of artistic expression should be endorsed unconditionally, in recognition of the virtue of their mission, or should there be some limitations of what can be portrayed in art? Stated otherwise, does art have the exclusive moral right to override all moral and legal concerns in the pursuit of its otherwise virtuous goals, or should art pursue its objectives within the legal and moral confines of the law and social norms respectively? Discussion Artistic portrayals of children in the 18th century Enlightenment era promoted the idea of an innocent childhood, which subtly demonstrates society’s continued negative impact on the innocence of children in the present age. The purity and innocence of childhood must be protected at all cost, particularly in the modern age of commercial advertising and artistic expression, in view of the growing interest of artists in children as the subjects of their artistic works (Cunningham, 2005). The need to protect children in and from the arts is paramount and more so today, when parents all over the world are anxious about the safety of their children and media reports about the horror of paedophilia abound. Artists often run the risk of objectifying children in their works, whether they are conscious of it or not, and so do researchers and other organizations that portray children artistically. To prevent the objectification of children, their words, drawings and images, the underlying power dynamics at play must not only be recognized but also acknowledged and addressed satisfactorily. Protection of children in and from the arts is important for addressing numerous issues with regards to access, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, protection, safety as well as the overall well-being of the child. Children that are not adequately dressed or naked have increasingly become a common feature in art over the past few years, thereby raising concerns regarding the pervasive exposure of their naked bodies, a trend that has been frowned upon and heavily criticised the world over. The advancement of art technologies, with respect to the photographic medium, and the internet, photographs of children are becoming a mainstream, especially on social media sites and on advertisement billboards on the streets (Ferraro & Casey, 2005). However, the rights of children to privacy are easily and often violated even when the pictures are being taken by their own parents or by their guardians. Exposure of children in art when they are not wearing anything raises strong and varied emotional reactions, especially in an age where there is widespread concerns over issues such as child pornography and paedophiles. In reaction to the increasing global outcry over this issue, many artists, particularly those working in the photographic media, have resorted to self-censorship, due to legal and ethical considerations. Ideally, the naked portrayal of children in art is not only a violation of their privacy, but also a complete assault of their dignity and should not be encouraged, even in an age of growing liberalness and freedoms of expression. In response to the underlying risks of harm to children in the more permissive contemporary world of art, where legal and ethical boundaries are almost non-existent, the need to protect the children in and from art is paramount like never before. Evidently, the increasing fears and concerns over the safety and wellbeing of children in contemporary art has led to the implementation of various protocols on the artistic portrayal of children thereby augmenting protections of the children. Children must be protected both in and from art, to address the increasing negative impacts of contemporary artistic expression and contexts to their development, and consequently to their later lives. The United Nation recognizes that all members of the human species, irrespective of their race, age, class or any other demographical difference for that matter, are entitled to dignity, equality and a host of other fundamental immutable rights. Children are the most at risk segment of the human species because children’s rights are easy to ignore or undermine since children have no voice or power to defend themselves against rights violations, thereby leading to exploitation (Frost, 2005). According to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, any person below the age of 18 years is classified as a child, irrespective of their race, religion or aptitudes; older people such as siblings, parents, or guardians of children must ensure the best interests of the child are protected in any decisions made on their behalf. In other words, all adults have an obligation to do what is right for the children while considering how their decisions, especially regarding policy, budget and laws, might affect the children in the long run (Humbert, 2009). In terms of protecting the children in arts, parents and guardians have an obligation to ensure children are not exposed to negative artistic expression contexts since they may later have devastating impacts on their minds. Parents or guardians of children must consider all the nuances underlying the artistic portrayal of their children before considering consenting to allow their children to be depicted in artistic work; before consenting, the parents or guardians must deliberate effectively on behalf of the children because to ensure that artistic depiction does not haunt their children later in life. Governments, on the other hand, must also be at the fore-front in ensuring the child’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled while also recognizing the duty of parents in guiding and directing their children as they mature. Children often do not know what is appropriate for them and will look up to their parents or responsible adults in their lives for guidance and direction. However, the government should also provide a framework within which the parents or guardians of children can effectively protect and promote the development of their children while safeguarding them from external influences that might impinge on their development. Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees the right of a child to privacy, stating categorically that laws should seek to protect children from attacks on their innocence, reputation, families and names. Article 34 of the convention further guarantees protection of children from all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse, as depicted in images that pervade contemporary media (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008); this provision is further supplemented by other protocols that recognize the threat of child prostitution and pornography to children. Furthermore, the thirty sixth article of the convention offers children protection against all other forms of exploitation, that is, any that may undermine their welfare and development thereby denying children a normal childhood. The Australian Council for the Arts has also fronted the efforts to protect children in arts by revising and advancing the protocols for working with children in art, to address the issues of exploitation and potential harm to children in art (Australia Council for the Arts, 2010). The protocols provide a national standard to be followed by both artists and art-based organizations that produce art works or conduct projects that involve children, in the country’s initiative to address the depiction of children in artistic creations. Australia’s adoption of the protocols for working with children is in recognition of the growing national and international concern over the importance of protecting and safeguarding children from exploitation and harm, particularly with regards to obscenity and pornography (Ost, 2009). The pervasiveness of online and mobile phone technologies further expand opportunities for both the explicit and implicit distribution of artistic work past its primary audience. Consequently, children must be protected both from and in art; people in art, including artists and arts organizations, have both legal and ethical obligation to ensure that children are protected. Children often fall victims of exploitation artistic expression, with their naked bodies being sexualized as depersonalized objects for the gaze of the adult eye (Lumby, 2010); exploitation of children has negative consequences for their mental development. Just like paedophiles, some artists often impose adult sexuality onto children due to their obsessive narcissistic tendencies and self-justification (Biddulph, 2008). Whatever the perspective of looking at it, art is still an integral part of the society, whether it serves to provoke or not, thus, it must respect the moral and legal confines; protection of the children in art and from art is a paramount responsibility for people in the arts since the horrors of child sexual abuse on children are real (Attwood, 2006). Young teenage children are particularly fragile since they are still caught up in the angst of identity crisis and process of establishing their own unique self-identity; in that case, any sort of adult predation on their bodies or highly impressionable minds would result to adverse consequences for the minors. Furthermore, children have a constantly shifting perspective as they grow up and what they might think is cool and exciting in one instance might also be horrendous and embarrassing in another instance. Consent should never be taken to be justification for the portrayal of children in art because minors may not know what is in their own interests and often rely on the mature adults around them to affirm their choices, a process that leads to maturity. To avert the potential risk of child pornography, exhibition galleries must also spearhead the initiative to protect exploitation of children in all forms of artistic expression. The child protection regulations must ensure that people in the arts take seriously the issue regarding interpretations of their works since they may not necessarily be the innocent depictions of childhood as was often the case in the past. The way artistic forms involving children are interpreted varies significantly, due to the pervasive sexualisation of bodies in today’s global environment. In that respect, artistic portrayal of children’s bodies is inevitably a great harm to their minds and the underlying implications for such interpretations Children must be protected from exploitation both from artists and art-based organizations who might take advantage of their childhood innocence for commercial gains in total disregard of the potential negative impact of the artistic portrayal to the children later in life. For instance, children should be protected from photographic exhibitions that entail re-enacting controversial or tragic events such as the Hurricane Katrina and assault on New York’s world trade centre, which may later have negative developmental impacts on the children (Daily Mail, 2011). Such tragic events are horrifying and placing children in such shocking contexts may later harm them developmentally; in that respect, consent is no justification to put children in such horrendous situations even if they do not understand the contexts. Despite the obvious implications of the excessive expressiveness of artistic creations in contemporary art, the proponents of deliberately shocking forms of artistic creativity are yet to be convinced on the importance of censorship, particularly when portraying children in art. Their argument that art in contemporary times is about the idea rather than the subject of art does function to emphasize the notion that even in transgressive art, the virtuous intent of the artistic piece justifies its ethical and legal transgressions (The Independent, 2014). This however gives an impression that even if the process is thoroughly flawed, the end justifies the means, that, anything goes, breach of ethical and legal boundaries notwithstanding. The widespread notion that the idea rather than the object of art should be the focus of contemporary art practice has granted artists the freedom to take great liberties with their art, sometimes pushing boundaries of society too far with regards to the portrayal of children in art. With the expansion of artistic manifestation, contemporary artistic work has often blurred the lines between art and outright pornography, blood, violence, or even death; such forms of transgressive art do undermine both social and institutional aesthetics. Photographs of children are not only the most common, but also the most controversial forms of expression in contemporary art; even though people may be quiet about pictorial depictions of sex and death, which are often considered taboo subjects in society, innocent photographs of children are bound to arouse scandal. Contemporary art deliberately trespasses social conventions on so many numerous levels, with the primary objective to shock, in total disregard of ethical and legal concerns; some artists have even gone ahead and established a reputation for themselves for their constant fascination with outrageous and exuberant themes. Many of the childhood images portrayed in contemporary media are both shocking and controversial since they sexualize the children’s bodies significantly, thereby exposing them to all imaginable risks (Nutbrown, 2010). Psychologists have expressed profound ethical concerns about making children to re-enact concepts in art when they do not have even the slightest idea of the meaning of those concepts. Evidently, the risk of exposing children to scenes of torture, terrorism as well as violence and death is crossing the ethical boundaries since even though they may not comprehend the meaning of the contexts, they could potentially be traumatized later in their developmental stages of life. Conclusion Ultimately, children should be protected in and from art because the shocking and sexualized portrayal of children in contemporary art and media is harmful to their fragile minds and could be traumatizing in their later lives. Augmenting protection of children in and from the arts is particularly important in today’s excessively permissive and liberal environment that significantly blurs the boundaries between life and artistic expression, amid the increasing concerns of child pornography and media reports of paedophilia. The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the various protocols for working with children in art provide a fundamental frame work for the establishment and enforcement of regulations for the protection of children in and from arts. Children are innocent and the purity of childhood must be respected, protected and preserved even in artistic expressions, so that children can grow and experience the world in their natural environments without influence of the adults. The universal entitlement of individuals to the fundamental freedom of expression is no excuse for artists to contravene all basic ethical and legal confines in the name of art and caution must be taken particularly when working with children to ensure that their fundamental rights are not violated. References Attwood, F. (2006). Sexed up: Theorizing the sexualisation of culture. Sexualities, 9 (1), 77-94. Australia Council for the Arts. (2010). Protocols for working with children in art. Retrieved from: http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/44314/Working_with_children_in_art_protocols_May_2010.pdf Biddulph, S. (2008). Art or not, its still exploitation. The age. Retrieved from: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/art-or-not-its-still-exploitation/2008/05/27/1211654026964.html Cathcart, M. (2013). When does art become child pornography? abc Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/when-does-art-become-child-pornography3f/4757586 Commonwealth of Australia. (2008). Sexualisation of children in the contemporary media. Retrieved from http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/eca_ctte/sexualisation_of_children/report/report.pdf Cunningham, H. (2005). Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500. London: Routledge. Daily Mail. (2011). Art or exploitation? Photographer who uses children to re-enact tragic historical events such as 9/11 angers parenting groups. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379780/Art-exploitation-Photographer-uses-children-enact-tragic-historical-events-9-11-angers-parenting-groups.html#ixzz3DNYiy8OV Ferraro, M.M. & Casey, E. (2005). Investigating Child Exploitation and Pornography: The Internet, the Law and Forensic Science. London: Elsevier. Frost, N. (2005). Child Welfare: Major Themes in Health & Social Welfare. London: Routledge. Hsu, C. (2014). Children and youth protection law as a limitation in the freedom of art. Soochow Law Review, 25(3), 1-36.  Humbert, F. (2009).The Challenge of Child Labour in International Law. Cambridge: CUP. Lumby, C. (2010). "Ambiguity, Children, Representation, and Sexuality." CLC Web: Comparative Literature and Culture 12(4). Nutbrown, C. (2010). Naked by the Pool? Blurring the Image? Ethical Issues in the Portrayal of Young Children in Arts-Based Educational Research. Qualitative Inquiry 17(1): 3–14. Ost, S. (2009). Child Pornography and Sexual Grooming: Legal and Societal Responses. Cambridge: CUP. The Independent. (2014). Art or abuse? : A lament for lost innocence. Retrieved from: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/art-or-abuse-a-lament-for-lost-innocence-2078397.html Read More