A girl treads the catwalk in Shanghai in October last year.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Concerns 

However, allowing children to work and earn as models has triggered heated debate about the effect on their physical and mental well-being.

In a video made by Kankan News in 2017, Ye Zuming, a then-11-year-old model for Taobao, said he earned about 800,000 yuan a year, adding that his motivation was "Everyone wants to live a wealthy life".

The Chinese-Serbian boy said: "If I am lucky enough, I want to be a movie star. To be an internet celebrity would also be OK for me. It would be nice to marry a beautiful wife like Dilraba Dilmurat (a well-known Chinese actress)."

Another model, Gu Ge, who was 9 when the video was shot, said she had to satisfy all the customers with good photos, and her ambition was to become an actress.

The video also showed children changing outfits at an outdoor shoot during winter, which disturbed many netizens.

The five-minute video received 30 million views and provoked a raft of criticism, with many observers commenting that the child models seemed calculating and overly mature.

"They have become tools for their parents to make money, and their moral values have become distorted," one commentator wrote.