Although numerous international treaties and organizations worktirelessly to improve conditions for children, there are still 320million children under the age of sixteen working around the world-- 150 million of those in the most harmful industries, such asprostitution and forced military service. This is their story, inwords and photographs.

Physician and photographer David L. Parker takes us beyond theheadlines and into the textile factories, stone quarries, andgarbage dumps where children are forced -- by unscrupulous adultsor by lack of any other economic opportunity -- into the desperatecycle of child labor. His haunting and sensitive portrayal of thesechildren preserves their dignity and humanity while exposing theiroften tragic circumstances.

The hazards of harsh working conditions are visitedexponentially on still-growing bodies and minds, whether they arecleaning elephant stables in India, picking cotton in Turkey, orextracting gold from Nicaraguan mines. Mercury used in miningcauses brain damage; stone dust destroys young lungs; circuscontortions cause serious muscular harm. But even beyond thedisastrous physical consequences of child labor, simply having towork means that children are deprived of the education, nurturing,and socialization that are the necessary foundations of lastinghealth, development, and progress.

Dr. Parker\'s riveting portraits of children continues in thebrave documentary tradition of Lewis Hine, Milton Rogovin, andSebasti¿o Salgado, who have contributed to the legal andhumanitarian advances of previous generations. We can only hope, asHine said in the early twentieth century, that one day soonheartbreaking images like these will simply be "records of thepast." Until then, Before Their Time is an essential call toaction. 135 duotone photographs.