A child modeling winter clothes during the dog days of summer has sparked heated debate over the industry on Chinese social media.

Thousands of netizens criticized the treatment of child models after domestic media outlet Xinmin Evening News published photos and video of a boy modeling sweaters and down jackets in Shanghai’s waterfront Bund area on Tuesday, when the city’s temperature was hovering between 29.5 and 37.7 degrees Celsius.

The boy’s parents declined to answer questions about the shoot when approached by a Xinmin reporter at the scene, saying only that the matter was a “family affair.”

Amid China’s e-commerce boom, the domestic child modeling industry has seen both growth and accusations of exploitation. In April, a woman apologized for kicking her 3-year-old daughter during a photo shoot in the eastern Zhejiang province after video of the incident went viral online. In response, a district in the provincial capital of Hangzhou passed a guideline prohibiting children under 10 from working as clothing models. (Image: 新民晚报 on WeChat)