Bal Mazdoor is Hindi for “child labourers”. Many of these are represented by the pioneering labour union for child workers, the Bal Mazdoor Sangh. In 1995, as part of a series of stories I was working on in three continents on the precarity of children living in poverty, I met with Rita Panniker, the director of the NGO in Delhi, and accompanied them during their work helping children to demand their own rights at work. Given the economic situation of the children and their families, they could not just stop working, as this would have implied even deeper poverty. The Union led by the children themselves protested and canvassed for labour rights and the right to education, so they could learn and break the cycles of poverty in which their families were trapped.