Globalization means we in the West can enjoy cheap goods derived from the developing world - often thanks to the labour of children, who earn next to nothing for the sacrifice of their childhood and who thus forgo any chance of even the most basic education. Whether it is cheap clothes from Walmart or cheap coffee beans or chocolate bars - our luxuries are made affordable by their poverty.

are theses poor children the lucky ones? For each child that lives in such deprived conditions there are hundreds more that die before they are old enough to work, either because of lacking sanitation or sheer hunger, or who have lost their mother while she gave birth to a sibling, or who are born with AIDS.