The sultry gaze of Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau is very confronting. Before you is the look of a seductive young woman, but it is encased in the body of a young child. These high end fashion shots of a child in full make up and draped over a sofa in a very sexually provocative pose make for uncomfortable viewing.  The fashion items she is modelling are lost in the confusing mixed messages that the images are sending out.

At only 10 years of age she is one of the youngest girls in the glamorous world of modelling to be exploited and sexualised in this way. At such a tender age she is already a veteran of photo shoots, having featured on the cover of Vogue Enfants and Elle.

Laws introduced into Australia in 2009 necessitates that employers wishing to use children under 16 years old as models need to gain permission from the NSW Children’s Guardian.

Strong reactions have come from experts all around the world.

Professor Catharine Lumby of the University of New South Wales told the Sydney Morning Herald “We need to look closely at the way in which I think we live in a very competitive world and I think we are often subjecting children to far too much in an array of areas.”

She concluded “I don’t think it matters how you dress a 10-year-old and how much make-up you put on them, they are not appropriate objects for sexual attention. And anyone who subjects them to sexual attention, we have a name for that – someone with a paedophilic approach to children. And we are rightly extremely vigilant about that.”

The British Government is in the process of enforcing restrictions on the sexualisation of children in the media and sexual content in advertising.

A spokesman for the UK Mothers’ Union said the organisation had “grave concerns about the modelling agency that represent Blondeau, which clearly does not know if it represents a child or an adult”.

Dr Emma Gray, a consultant clinical psychologist, said “If children are to develop into happy, grounded and psychologically balanced people, their childhood needs to be spent appropriately preparing for the demands of the adult world.”

“Prematurely exposing a child to the adult world is dangerously preventing the completion of their development.”

“The research clearly shows that the fashion industry affects girls and women’s images of themselves and their self-esteem if they do not meet the industry ‘image’ that is currently in vogue,” said Paul Miller, associate professor of psychology at Arizona State University in Phoenix. “Even the very young are quite conscious of media images of what is ‘pretty’ and desirable.”

Many in the industry have defended the work as art. Others say it crosses a line.
 
“Any creepy child pornographer could plead ‘artistic license,'” said Miller.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald. The Courier Mail