Children's Commissioner deems candid camera programme distasteful

The Commissioner for Children has expressed her "distaste" for an episode of the Family TV programme Issa ċ-Ċans where she said children were bullied and provoked to tears in the name of entertainment.

Calling on the public to boycott such programmes, Carmen Zammit lambasted the two-hour-long candid camera episode on January 4, during which pranks were played on the children who were being filmed. It was "absolutely disgraceful to witness such deterioration in the quality of TV," she said.

However, when contacted, Andrew Farrugia, on behalf of the station, said Family TV had approached the parents with the idea of a candid camera and all of them were present during every recording.

Mr Farrugia defended the programme and said parents had even given the station tips on how to tease their children.

However, for Ms Zammit, "using children as the butt of humour in this way is deplorable and humiliating and should be unacceptable in a society that claims to love and respect them".

Ms Zammit explained that the children were called in to the studio and, supposedly for rehearsal purposes, were required to sing a song. Instead, they found themselves insulted, mocked and pushed around for the purposes of the prank, while being filmed, she said. "The crew in the studio made numerous - and successful - efforts to provoke the children to tears and anger, all in the name of entertainment."

The programme included name-calling, yelling directed at the children, and a staged fight, aimed at drawing a reaction from the shocked kids, Ms Zammit said.

"One young girl was even reduced to uncontrollable tears while others remained shocked and unsure of what was happening," she said.

"While children are capable of taking a joke, the content of this programme was tantamount to bullying. This is appalling not only in itself but in the fact that the station management saw it fit to classify this as entertainment."

Ms Zammit strongly urged audiences to show their disapproval by boycotting such programmes and urged all broadcasting stations to professionally invest in producing programmes of quality, particularly those aimed for and with children.