Are the Penninsula Hotels print ads really portraying child laborers?

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

(Note: This might end up in GD but I'm really more interested in the facts behind the ad campaign than in debating the ethics).

The Penninsula Hotels chain has been running ads in the New Yorker which show, among other things, a group of East Asian primary school-age children in bellboy/bellgirl uniforms. Is this something we should be concerned about, or is it just an advertising gimmick playing on the general appeal of cute children?

[Joey P]

Is there any kind of a caption that goes along with it, I'd imagine that would be what makes the ad swing one way or another. Is there a picture of it online somewhere.

[Joey P]

Can I use question marks.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

A link to these ads, please?

Do you have a scanner?

[Danalan]

Go to their site, here, and click on 'Portraits of Penisula'. This opens a flash slide show of pictures by Annie Leibovitz'. There are several shots of 'pages', apparently children of the staff, who do work for the hotel somehow. "They are a symbol of graciousness, etc., and have been for 76 years."

[jasonh300]

Originally Posted by Danalan

Go to their site, here, and click on 'Portraits of Penisula'. This opens a flash slide show of pictures by Annie Leibovitz'. There are several shots of 'pages', apparently children of the staff, who do work for the hotel somehow. "They are a symbol of graciousness, etc., and have been for 76 years."

I read it as children of the staff (the staff's children) posing for a picture in outfits as pages.

[twelvericepaddies]

Oh please do not disturb our hysteria with facts - let us forge ahead in our crusade to bring tabloid justice to all - no matter how pointless & wrongheaded, and nest among raspberries in honour of St. Monty Python.

[lawoot]

eah, I took that photo as children of staff, dressed up like pages, then the fact that the Pen's pages "are a symbol of graciousness, etc., and have been for 76 years." No child labor here. There is also a picture of these kids where they are actually WITH there parents, towards the end of the slideshow.

[EvilGhandi]

So basicly, same as me when my kid was seven. I bought him a plastic hard hat/ tool belt and made him make his own "tool box" out of 1/4 inch plywood.

He wore his overalls and the women basicly fell over to get to him. He got REAL tired of it by the time summer was up and wore T-shirts.

Come to think of it, it WAS kinda child abuse.