For several hours a day, 13-year-old Chit Ko works bare foot with the basket full of rocks on his shoulder. He earns just 3 dollars and 50 cents a day, transporting stones back and forth for a construction company who uses them to build roads and highways. It's back breaking work but Chit, who quits school so he can support his family, has other plans.
"I want to be a doctor when I'm older." He says, "I wanna take care of my parents."
Chit is just one of many child labors being exploited in Myanmar, a country whose recent foray into the international stage has its screwing to play catch-up, when it comes to infrastructure economic growth. The International Labor Organization says the lure of cheap labor is a slippery slope when the government has so many priorities that need to be addressed.
"They have to address economic policies, social, education, health, development, agriculture, all these policies together, because each of them, each of them work in different areas to achieve that objective, and it's a massive problem."
According to rights groups, only about 60% of Myanmar's children are enrolled in school, and all those about a third dropped out after fifth grade.
