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Did the Duggars violate child labor laws? In the seven years the show 19 Kids and Counting filmed, no work permits were issued for the Duggar children. No big deal? According to Arkansas law, children under the age of 14 are forbidden to work.
Arkansas Department of Labor's Denise P. Oxley tells RadarOnline, "Our office never issued a work permit for any of the children on this show." However, that doesn't mean the family broke the law.
"Just because children were being filmed as part of a reality show does not mean that they were employees within the meaning of Arkansas’s child labor laws and were required to have such a permit," Oxley adds. She says no one has filed a complaint to her office over the children's participation in the show.
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I suppose it could come down to whose names you see in the Duggar family's contracts with TLC and whose names are on the paychecks. Since the kids were ostensibly going about their ordinary lives it certainly wouldn't look like they were employed -- not any more than your average kid tasked with chores around the house.
Then again, as scripted as reality television shows are, there may have been quite a bit of gray area there.
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Still, this probably won't add up to a hill of beans unless someone wants to go through the trouble of filing a complaint. And who wants to do that? Why kick the family when they're already down?
It does seem odd, in retrospect, that TLC didn't see to that detail. We don't know their side of the story, and there may be some very good reasons why no work permits were filed for the kids. Too much paperwork? At any rate, the show is over for those kids now.
Image via duggarfam/Instagram
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