The International Labor Organization launched the first World Day Against Child Labor in 2002. It is an effort to draw attention to the plight of the 250 million children between 5 and 14 who are put to work -- 120 million of them full-time and four out of five without pay. Asia has the largest number of child workers in absolute terms. The photographs in this gallery highlight kids from RFE/RL's broadcast region working in inappropriate jobs. Putting children to work not only endangers their health, in many cases, but deprives them of adequate education and, well, the chance just to be kids.
All Work And No Play: World Day Against Child Labor 2012
1
A 12-year-old boy works in a garage in Baghdad.
2
Young blacksmiths working in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif.
3
A child collects iron from a destroyed building in Iran.
4
A boy works at a market in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
5
A child porter in the Iranian city of Isfahan
6
A boy sews military uniforms at a market in Kabul.
7
Internally displaced children work in a brick factory in the western Afghan city of Herat.
8
Afghan boys pick up trash around a bazaar outside a U.S. Marines combat outpost in Helmand Province.
9
An Iranian girl sells vegetable to passing cars.
10
A girl works in a tailor shop in Iran.
11
A young boy picks cotton in a field in Uzbekistan.
12
Kyrgyz children harvesting vegetables
13
Uzbek children picking cotton
14
A young girl picks cotton near the Kyrgyz city of Osh.
15
A boy work at a brick kiln on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Hyderabad.
16
A 10-year-old Pakistani boy pauses during his work of cutting fish at Karachi's fish harbor.
17
Children search for iron in waste sand in an industrial area of the Pakistani city of Islamabad.
18
Children picking cotton in Uzbekistan