Missing Childhoods (00:46)

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Play is essential to the physical and social development of children. But for many of the world's poor children, play is a luxury. Two hundred million children labor in factories and fields in the poorest of countries, including India.

India: A Land of Contradictions (02:59)

India, the world's largest democracy, promotes itself as the rising star of the information age, but most of its children work, uneducated, in quarries, fields, and factories for little pay. The West benefits from India's technology and child laborers.

From Making Incense to Pollinating Hybrid Cotton Seeds (04:02)

Hyderabad, the capital of the southern state Andhra Pradesh, is home to the largest number of child laborers. Laws prohibit children from working in factories and mines but not in agriculture and small-scale industries like making incense.

Helping India's Working Children (04:50)

The market demand leads to low wages and cheap labor, a need that supersedes children's rights. In 1981, Shanta Sinha started the MV Foundation to liberate children from work and transition them back into education through bridge schools.

Two Child Labor Scenarios: Vicious Cycles With Little Hope (02:28)

Children of one family are forced to work to help their sick father who spends money on alcohol to relieve his pain. Much of the work of India’s children is bonded labor. Parents borrow money and their children's labor repays the loan.

India's Broken System (03:58)

India's caste system reinforces using children as laborers. Even though law prohibits discrimination, custom and economic needs supersede the law. According to Shanta Sinha, people do not care that children are suffering and being exploited.

Indian Parents' Views and Hope for the Children (04:35)

Many parents do not want to see their children suffer and want to send them to school. They see no choice but to make them work. Shanta Sinha has found that children working leads to more poverty. The bridge schools help children find hope.