Child Exploitation Exists On Social Media

As a family engagement influencer and YouTube content creator as well as subscriber, I recently reached my breaking point. I will now devote some of my efforts to stopping the exploitation of physically disabled and severely ill children on social media platforms by their parents.

Introduction

My heart goes out to infants born with dreadful physical health conditions and physical defects that range from mild to profoundly severe. Compassion absorbs me when children of all ages and teenagers endure the effects of these disabilities and other incurable health conditions that affect the quality of their lives. The impacted babies, children, and in most instances teens cannot verbalize the totality of their intrinsic and extrinsic needs. However, what is certain is that these precious individuals deserve to be surrounded by love, the highest level of care, and uncompromised support. It is the responsibility of parents to ensure that every unique need that their children have are being met with the highest degree of regard for their humanity by competent providers who support them unconditionally.

Being the parent of a child with physical defects and other disabilities carries extra responsibilities. Not only must they provide individualized care according to their prescribed treatment plan, but parents must also protect them.

Protecting them does not mean publicly exposing children with profound medical problems and physical deformities to unwarranted attention that could easily result in cruelty and disrespect. Protecting them does not mean that parents place their frailties on display for curious global onlookers to gaze upon in amazement shamefully reminiscent of the sideshow era. Protecting these beautiful children does not mean that parents use them for self-satisfying outcomes. Protecting them does not mean that parents violate the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the United States by sharing their child’s private medical information with the world.

Parents who fail to protect their physically vulnerable children by producing and sharing videos and images featuring them exploit them. Additionally, any social media platform that permits parents to do so is just as guilty of child exploitation.

The purpose of this story is to raise awareness of this concern so that steps can be taken to stop the parents from using their children who have disabilities for notoriety and personal gain.

Child Exploitation 101

Many people associate child exploitation with the unlawful engagement of children in sexual activities. However, I will briefly discuss this disturbing behavior through a different lens. The true meaning of exploitation accentuates its deeper definition.

Exploitation refers to the act of taking advantage of someone who remains powerless to stop the violator. A person who exploits another does so for self-serving reasons. In the context of children, it simply means to take advantage of their innocent helplessness to gain the outcome that is sought. Often the sought-after outcome includes financial gain as well as receiving prestige and fame that parallels celebrity status.

Any parent who exploits their infant, child, or teen, especially those highlighted in this story, is morally wrong. Their abusive actions represent the highest form of parental cruelty.

What’s the Motivation?

I reached my proverbial tipping point a short time ago. This was because I stumbled on yet another YouTube video featuring a defenseless infant with multiple disabilities that was posted by parents. My response was the question that I asked myself below:

“Why are these parents exploiting their infant by creating multiple videos on their YouTube channel

The initial response that I came up with that could be argued was that the parents create the videos to educate others about the multiple physical conditions that their child is stricken with. As I continued to rationalize this perspective, I considered an alternative strategy the parents could implement that would not exploit their child by sharing images and going into detail describing all the medical complications their child endures. The parents could strategically collaborate with targeted advocacy organizations to extend their reach and amplify their voice to educate others. This would also build their capacity to advocate for increased support for these research-based and medically-based organizations.

Regardless of the educational claims parents could make to justify all the videos they create that feature their disabled child as a star, I have a more palatable counterargument that explains why I believe parents post images of their child on social media. I believe that the parents are motivated by financial greed along with their desire for popularity. Furthermore, it is my opinion that they are also motivated by a high number of likes, shares, and subscribers or followers.

While I elaborated on the parents that exasperated me earlier, they are not the only ones who exploit their disabled and physically fragile infants and children on their social media platforms. I think that many who take advantage of their children do so for the same reasons accentuated above.

This cannot continue to happen.

Children Are Entitled to Privacy

Sadly, no laws could be located that prevent parents from exploiting their children with disabilities on social media. Since I am not a health professional nor attorney who specializes in medical law, I am not an expert in this area. However, I believe that three things need to happen to protect children from the exploitation emphasized in this story.

Social media policies and safeguards need to be developed and implemented with fidelity to prevent parents from taking advantage of their children with special needs. Efforts must be made to protect these precious children who are used by their parents as a commodity to generate money and popularity. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) could be instrumental in ensuring that this happens.

The dignity and rights of these children must be preserved so that offending parents stop violating them online. All privacy regulations associated with HIPAA must be reinforced because the will of the parents to share medically protected information about their child does not invalidate the law.

Robust child advocacy efforts connected to laws that protect children with special needs must be implemented because the impacted children cannot self-advocate. I believe guidance may be embedded in the federal laws that exist to protect infants, children, and teenagers with disabilities and other health conditions. They include the following:

• As previously mentioned throughout this article, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

• IDEA (Individual with Disabilities Education Act)
• ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)

• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

This Is My Conclusion: It’s Time to Stop Posting the Videos and Pictures

I continue to find it devastating to observe images and video content posted online that feature infants, children, and teenagers with severe physical deformities and other severe health conditions as celebrities. The most disturbing thing is that parents are the individuals who have placed the content on social media platforms.

Even though parents are the individuals who are responsible for protecting their vulnerable and defenseless children, they take advantage of them instead. Motivated by celebrity-like fame, money, likes, views, shares, subscriptions, and followers, the offending parents exploit their children. Some social media subscribers may join me in having a heart filled with compassion for the disabled children who remain the subject of social media content.

The laws highlighted in this story have been designed to protect children including those victimized by their parents. Sadly, this type of child exploitation continues to go unchecked by the FTC and the entities that enforce the aforementioned laws because nothing is being done to protect the rights that these children have.

As a family engagement influencer, I will begin to devote my efforts to raise awareness of this problem so that it can be solved.

Thank you for reading this informative story. I will write other stories in the near future describing my progress in solving this social media concern.

If you enjoyed this story, consider sharing it on your social media platforms. Also, please consider adding a tip to help fund my work to increase family engagement in education.

This story was originally published on Medium.com in ILLUMINATION-Curated.