Children deserve to live a life that is safe from exploitation and harm, but are we failing in our duty to protect them?Childhood today is big business - it is impossible for any child growing up to avoid pervasive and intense marketing from companies. Whether it be for fatty foods resulting in childhood obesity, expensive franchised toys which encourage tension within families and stigma among friends, or 'pornified' role models who pervert children's ideas of sexuality, research clearly shows that commercial pressures are having a direct impact on children's psychological development and health. This book draws together a series of hard-hitting articles contributed by key thinkers on child welfare and child psychology including Oliver James, Susie Orbach and Gail Dines. Together they identify new and emerging forms of child exploitation, and Exploiting Childhood constructs a powerful argument for why current child protection procedures designed to protect children from abuse are no longer adequate.Outspoken and challenging, this book invites us to consider our responsibility for preventing the harm children are experiencing, and is required reading for anyone concerned with the welfare of children.
1. Introduction. Jim Wild, The Centre for Active & Ethical Learning, UK. Section I: Commercial Exploitation. 2. Introducing Selfish Capitalism. Oliver James, Psychologist and Author, UK. 3. Arguments, Bullies and Feeling Poor: How Consumer Culture Affects Children's Relationships. Professor Agnes Nairn, EM-Lyon Business School, France. 4. Child Obesity and the Junk Food Marketeers. Tim Lobstein, Curtin University, Australia. 5. The Science of Violent Entertainment. Dr. Wayne Warburton, Macquarie University, Australia. 6. Changing Childhoods: Nature Deficit. James Hawes, counsellor and psychotherapist, UK. 7. The Myth of Choice for Children and Parents: Why We Deny the Harm Being Caused to Our Children. Professor Renata Salecl, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Section II: Sexual Exploitation. 8. The Commercialisation of Girls' Bodies. Susie Orbach, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst and writer, UK. 9. Grooming Our Girls: Hypersexualisation of the Culture as Child Sexual Abuse. Gail Dines, feminist anti-pornography activist, author and professor, Wheelock College, Massachusetts, USA. 9. The Internet: A Global Market for Child Sexual Abuse. Sharon Girling OBE, UK. 10. Sex, Sexuality and Child Sexual Abuse. Professor Liz Kelly CBE, London Metropolitan University, UK. 11. Children, Childhood and Sexualized Popular Culture. Dr Maddy Coy. Section III: Fighting Back Against Commercial and Sexual Exploitation. 12. Helping Children to Stand Up to Society - Critical Challenges and Culture Jamming. Professor Stephen D. Brookfield, University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, USA. 13. Still Waters in a Storm: The Power of Collective Learning. Stephen Haff, Still Waters in a Storm, New York, USA. 14: Riots, Rebellion and Finding New Utopias. Adam Barnard, Nottingham Trent University, UK. 15. Conclusion: A New Category of Child Abuse. Jim Wild.
'When adults poison children, groom them for sex or expose them to extreme violence, we call it abuse. In this provocative and often shocking book, child protection expert Jim Wild rallies a wide range of expert evidence to show how ''abuse'' of this kind is rapidly becoming normalised across society -- in the name of economic growth. As unregulated corporate greed threatens the physical and mental health of an entire generation, Exploiting Childhood is a book none of us can afford to ignore.'-- Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood'The nightmarish vision of this book is that parents have less and less ability to influence their children as the advertising and multimedia corporations colonise their minds. Children's bodies and brains are being steered towards future disease from junk food, they are desensitised to violence and prematurely sexualised, whilst their imaginations and empathy wither away from lack of creative play and interaction. It is a scary story and it left me genuinely wondering whether our current culture is itself abusing children.'-- Sue Gerhardt, psychotherapist and author of The Selfish Society'Keenly researched and powerfully argued, this is a clarion call for the protection of children against insidious forms of harm. A courageous and hugely important book.'-- Jay Griffiths, author of Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape'Over 12 years of delivering Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) and single agency safeguarding training, I've found that attendees always want to know a safeguarding professional's opinions on the sorts of dilemmas and issues discussed in this book. This is an accessible, compelling and important book and anyone involved in safeguarding children should read it and be aware of these issues.'-- Jane O'Daly, Trust Safeguarding Lead, Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust'This important book recognises that child protection policy and practice has a very restricted view of what causes harm to children, and that we need to take seriously the growing evidence about the negative impact of commercial and corporate exploitation on children's well-being.'-- Nigel Parton, Professor of Applied Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield
