Children at Work

At rock bottom: Across the world, about 166 million children ages to 5 to 14 labor in the workforce, which interferes with their ability to get an education and harms their chances of escaping poverty as adults. Above, 10-year-old Shyamoli hauls stones as a human mule near the Balason River in the Indian state of West Bengal on June 12. Children working at the river make about $8.25 per month.

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Rock collection: Ten-year-old Dipak Sheel, left, gathers stones as he works with his family at the Balason River area on the outskirts of the West Bengal city of Siliguri on June 12. With 17 million child laborers, India has more than any other country. A 1986 Indian law prohibits children from hazardous jobs such as those in mines and factories. An October 2006 law prohibits children under 14 from working in homes (as maids, for instance) and in restaurants. But, since the 2006 law was enacted, only 1,680 prosecutions have taken place, and no convictions have resulted.

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Building blocks: Nine-year-old Sanjoy Munda makes bricks in Barjala, near Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura, on June 11. Sanjoy earns about $7.25 a month to help out his impoverished family. Laws clearly aren't stopping child labor, probably because they don't get to the heart of the problem. "[W]hat the government also needs to address is the root cause, which is poverty," the director of Indian NGO Child Rights and You (CRY) told the Times of India.

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Embroiled in embroidery: Indian boys embroider at a zari factory during a raid-and-rescue operation conducted by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) in New Delhi on June 22. Fifty-two bonded child laborers ages 8 to 14 were rescued by the organization with the help of authorities. One 8-year-old said he worked 12 to 13 hours daily. Rescuers said the factory was 113 degrees Fahrenheit, with no fans. Bonded labor can occur when desperately poor parents give a child to a placement agency in return for money or are tricked into thinking that their child will be sent to school.

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Shoe crew: A boy works at a shoe workshop in New Delhi on June 12, which was World Day Against Child Labor. Activists from Bachpan Bachao Andolan, along with local authorities, rescued 46 children ages 7 to 14. Children reported toiling 12 to 13 hours daily and being beaten. A 13-year-old girl said her father gave her up after being threatened by a moneylender. Other places where Indian children work are restaurants and roadside food stalls. Families also employ children as maids. Child domestic work can only end if India succeeds in making it "socially and culturally unacceptable," Save the Children's manager for India told Time.

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Dirty work: A rescued child laborer, his hands stained with rubber residue, eats a biscuit at the Narela police station in New Delhi on June 12. On June 15, a New Delhi court issued a statement saying that when it comes to trafficking children, the government should prosecute family members who hand over their sons and daughters to placement agencies in return for money. Some activists, though, think that going after families is "anti-poor" because poverty drives families to give up their children out of desperation.

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Sparks in his eyes: Child labor is a concern in many countries. Above, a Lebanese child works at a blacksmith's workshop -- without donning protective eyewear -- in the northern city of Tripoli on June 12. About 100,000 children under 16 work in Lebanon. Many have dropped out of school so they can help their poor families, and most come from Tripoli and the northern district of Akkar. In addition to working with machinery, children work in jewelry workshops, perform agricultural work, paint, and deliver groceries.

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Tiring work: Lebanese children work with tires at a workshop on the outskirts of Tripoli on June 12. In Bab-al-Tabbene, a poor Tripoli neighborhood, children can be found working at the majority of its mechanics and scrap-metal shops. One 13-year-old mechanic there told Agence France-Presse that he earns $10 weekly for putting in 10 hours a day, six days a week. Children are less expensive to hire than adults, so businesses are more inclined to use underage labor during tough economic times.

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Windshield wiper: Andres, 12, cleans the windshield of a car as his brother Juan, 13, looks on in Cali, one of Colombia's largest cities, on June 11. Estimates of the number of child laborers in the South American country range from 780,000 to 1.6 million. Children do everything from sell chewing gum in the streets to construction, mining, agricultural work, and manufacturing. Child labor has been mentioned in discussions about free trade agreements with Canada and the United States, with opponents concerned about labor rights violations in Colombia.

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Freed: Rescued bonded Indian child laborers wait at a rubber workshop in New Delhi on June 12. While most child laborers are boys, about 46 percent of the approximately 218 million child laborers ages 5 to 17 worldwide are girls, with many performing domestic work in others' homes. Girls often face a "double burden" of doing chores in their own homes -- such as caring for younger siblings, cooking, and fetching water -- and also working outside the home. The heavy workload can keep them out of school, continuing the cycle of poverty.

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Looking ahead: Rescued bonded child laborers are escorted to a police station in New Delhi on June 12. The International Labor Organization (ILO) is concerned that the Great Recession will send more children into the workforce, a reversal of the trend of decreasing child labor in the early 2000s. One ILO official told Voice of America, "We now risk that this positive, generally positive trend is going to be reversed ... . In the recession and with declining household income, children are put out of school and put into work." And for these kids, the future may not work out well at all.

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• The Cars That Are Killing GM
• Working in Hell for $11 a Day
• The Land of No Smiles
• Spring Break Gone Wrong?
• So You Want to Visit Cuba?
• India's Real-World Slumdogs
• Gaza's (Literal) Underground Economy

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