With the prospect of tens of millions of children out of school, AP teams in Latin America, Africa and India documented how the pandemic is pushing many into the labor force.
When Mexico announced in August that its 30 million students would start a new school year using a combination of internet and television-based distance learning, it became clear that swaths of the country would be left behind. And the problem was not just a lack of technology.
Without students physically present in school, many poor families chose to send their children to work to help survive the pandemic’s economic toll. As one teacher put it, “For them, to sit around watching television, if they have it, is like wasting time.”
Starting in Mexico, the AP decided to look at this sad phenomenon on a broad level, particularly after UNICEF warned that tens of millions of out-of-school children could be affected worldwide. The story drew on AP’s vast reach:
— Mexico City reporter María Verza and photographer Eduardo Verdugo reached out to contacts in the southern state of Chiapas where even before the pandemic school attendance was not a given. On a trip there with senior video producer Alexis Triboulard they found children hammering away inside rustic amber mines, clearing brush and weaving textiles.
Andres Gomez, 11, works inside an amber mine near the community of Jotolchen II in Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 10, 2020. Gomez said that before the new coronavirus pandemic hit he attended school and then would spend a couple of hours mining after class, but since the school closed in March he is spending entire days mining with his father.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Andres Gomez, 11, exits the amber mine where he works near the community of Jotolchen II in Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 10, 2020. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, Gomez works in the mine hoping to find a piece of amber for which a middleman might pay him $1 to $5, but what he really wants is “To learn to read and write,” he said.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
A classroom stands empty in Jotolchen II school, closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 13, 2020. Mexican education officials said enrollment for the school year was down about 10%, but some teachers warn that many students enrolled out of habit, but aren't participating.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
The Francisco Gonzalez Bocanegra Primary School stands closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the community of Jotolchen II, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 13, 2020. Experts say the longer their education is put on hold, the less likely children will return to school.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
A classroom stands empty at the Francisco Gonzalez Bocanegra Primary School in Jotolchen II, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 13, 2020.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Andres Gomez, 11, left, takes a break with his father Andres, right, inside an amber mine near the community of Jotolchen II, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 10, 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Andres, his father and his brother Alfredo spend their days in a hand-carved tunnel lacking any supports or safety measures, mining for amber.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Juan Gabriel Vazquez, 11, center, and his brothers walk to work in the corn fields in Nuevo Yibeljoj in Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 11, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic is closing schools and sending children like the Vazquez brothers to work throughout the developing world, threatening gains made against child labor over the past 20 years.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Juan Gabriel Vazquez spins thread at his home during the coronavirus pandemic in the community of Nuevo Yibeljoj, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 11, 2020. Since schools closed in March, the 11-year-old is one of 12 siblings who work in the coffee fields daily instead of just the weekends, while his father helps them with school work dropped off by teachers.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Using a bed as a desk, Agustin Vazquez helps his sons Samuel and Hector with their schoolwork handed out by teachers during the coronavirus pandemic, at their home in Nuevo Yibeljoj, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 11, 2020. “I try, but it’s not the same as a teacher, because I’m a farmer,” said Agustín.
AP Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
Unused school materials lay on a shelf decorated with an image of Gen. Porfirio Díaz, who was president of Mexico from 1848 to 1876, at a school in the community of Nuevo Yibeljoj, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 11, 2020.
P Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
A road winds through the community of Nuevo Yibeljoj in Chiapas state, Mexico, Sept. 11, 2020. While less fatal for the young, COVID-19 is nonetheless threatening the future of a generation of children who have been forced from school and sent to work, undermining gains made against child labor over the past 20 years.
P Photo / Eduardo Verdugo
— In Bolivia, reporter Carlos Valdez, photographer Juan Karita and freelance videojournalist Carlos Guerrero found a family of carpenters who had drafted their five school-age children into making furniture.
Three of the Delgado children, from left, Alison, 8; Wendi, 9; and Yuri, 11, make a drawer in the family carpentry shop in El Alto, Bolivia, Sept. 2, 2020. In a country where informal employment makes up 70% of the economy, the closure of schools because of the new coronavirus pandemic is puts more children like the Delgados to work.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
Wendi Delgado, 9, works in her family’s carpentry shop while the school year is canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in El Alto, Bolivia, Sept. 2, 2020.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
Mariana Delgado does schoolwork at her family’s carpentry shop in El Alto, Bolivia, Sept. 2, 2020. “For the students the closure of the school year is a catastrophe. They’re not going to make up the time and I strive for them to be more than carpenters,” said the 6-year-old's father, Hector Delgado.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
Wearing masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the Delgado family poses for a photo in their carpentry shop in El Alto, Bolivia, Aug. 28, 2020. Since the government canceled the school year, the five children between ages 6 and 14 work in the shop with their parents.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
The Delgado children work in their family’s carpentry shop, supervised by their father in El Alto, Bolivia, Aug. 28, 2020.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
Teddy bears covered in sawdust sit beside tools at a family-run carpentry shop in El Alto, Bolivia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020. In Bolivia, the government decided to cancel the school year in August because it said there was no way to provide an equitable education to the country’s nearly 3 million students.
AP Photo / Juan Karita
— Outside Paraguay’s capital, freelance reporter William Costa and freelance photographer Jorge Saenz captured children’s grueling work in the brick kilns that underpin the country’s construction industry.
Cristian, 11, turns clay bricks on their sides to dry in the sun before they are put in a kiln at a small brick factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Aug. 24, 2020. While the government prohibits minors under 14 from working at brick factories, Cristian said he’s been working here to supplement his family’s income, even before the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
Cristian, 11, turns clay bricks on their sides to dry in the sun before they are put in a kiln at a small brick factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Aug. 24, 2020.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
Cesar, 13, presses clay into a mold to make bricks at a factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020.
Mauri, 11, left, and Cesar, 13, work at a clay brick factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020. The boys have been working at the factory, run by Mauri’s family, even before schools closed in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
A worker puts clay in a pit as a donkey circles, turning the arm to knead the mixture at a family brick factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020. Members of brickmaking families said school closures, scheduled to last until at least December, have led to many children and adolescents working longer hours. And these new schedules have made it difficult to complete virtual schoolwork.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
Children work with their relatives to load a kiln with clay bricks in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020. In many of the small Tobati brick factories, locals begin to work at an early age to supplement their family’s income.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
At a brick factory run by his uncles, Alejandro, 9, catches bricks for a man who will load them into the kiln in Tobati, Paraguay, Aug. 31, 2020.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
Alfieri Cuenca, 25, looks at the camera as he works at a brick factory in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020. Cuenca says that he and his brothers have been working in the rustic brickworks, a backbone of the country’s construction industry, since they were children.
AP Photo / Jorge Saenz
— In Kenya, reporter Tom Odula found that some girls had been forced into prostitution while other children broke rocks in a quarry.
Irene Wanzila, 10, carries a bucket of broken rocks at Kayole quarry in Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 29, 2020, after breaking them with a hammer along with her younger brother, older sister and mother. Her mother says she was left without a choice after losing her cleaning job at a private school when coronavirus pandemic restrictions were imposed. The United Nations says the pandemic jeopardizes gains made in the fight against child labor, putting millions of children at risk of being forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
Kevin Mutinda, 7, works breaking rocks with a hammer at Kayole quarry in Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 29, 2020, along with his older sisters and mother, who says she was left without a choice after losing her cleaning job at a private school when coronavirus pandemic restrictions were imposed.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
In Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 26, 2020, Peter Kihika, 16, who wants to become a teacher, weighs scavenged materials to be sold for recycling, at Dandora, Kenya’s largest landfill, where he now works after his mother lost her job and his school was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
In Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 26, 2020, Miriam Nyambura coaches her son Peter Kihika, 16, who wants to become a teacher but now works during the day scavenging materials to be sold for recycling. His mother lost her job and his school was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
In Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 26, 2020, Mohamed Nassur, 17, scavenges for scrap metal to sell at Dandora, Kenya’s largest landfill, where he now works after his mother lost her job and his school was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
A teenage girl who became a sex worker after schools in Kenya were closed in March due to coronavirus restrictions, sits in the rented room where she and others work, in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 1, 2020. The girls saw their mothers’ sources of income vanish when Kenya restricted movement to prevent the spread of the virus. They now engage in the sex work to help with household bills.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
Teenage girls who became sex workers after schools in Kenya were closed in March due to coronavirus restrictions, sit in the rented room where they work in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 1, 2020.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
A teenage girl who became a sex worker after schools in Kenya were closed in March due to coronavirus restrictions, casts a shadow on the wall of the rented room where she and others work in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 1, 2020.
AP Photo / Brian Inganga
And in New Delhi, reporter Sheikh Saaliq heard concerns that millions of children could be forced into labor, fall victim to trafficking or be married off.
The arresting all-formats package – including a powerful montage of the sounds of child labor – was assembled by Phoenix-based digital storyteller Dario Lopez.
The project was widely used in English and Spanish, including by The Washington Post and Univision, and UNICEF referenced the AP reportage in its attempts to rally action against child labor.
For their important and compelling work, the team of Verza, Verdugo, Triboulard, Valdez, Karita, Guerrero, Costa, Saenz, Odula, Inganga, Saaliq and Lopez wins AP’s Best of the Week award.
