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Shanta Basnet sends her grandson off to school as her daughter and daughter-in-law look on in the remote village of Amppipal, Nepal. Just 15 miles from the epicenter of the 2015 earthquake, the Nepali village was badly damaged. The Basnet family now lives in a temporary shelter they made out of corrugated metal sheets and salvaged wood where they will be spending their second monsoon season. Reconstruction is slow as the government has stalled in distributing aid to both Kathmandu and the villages damaged near the epicenter.

Image and caption by Ann Hermes. Nepal, 2016.

Young boys help stack bricks inside a kiln in Dhading district, Nepal. Despite a national law that bans children under the age of 14 from working, such scenes are commonplace in the country’s brick making industry. A 2012 study estimated that up to 28,000 children are working in brick kilns across Nepal, of whom half are under 14. Kiln owners and the migrant families they employee often say children want to help in their free time, denying that they’re forcing them to work. But Homraj Acharya, a children's rights activist, says that argument is a slippery slope. “The reason we have zero tolerance is because if you allow some leeway, people will take advantage of it,” he says. “They will push the boundaries.”

Image and caption by Ann Hermes. Nepal, 2016.

Jaya Prakash Nasayan Seingh works on the foundation of the Kantipur Hotel in Kathmandu, an eight story hotel that will be geared to tourists. Construction on the hotel started before the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and was stalled for several weeks as construction workers at the site brought down homes that were badly damaged around Kathmandu. Tourism and reconstruction are slowly moving forward in Nepal as the country nears the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake.

Image and caption by Ann Hermes, CS Monitor. Nepal, 2016

Mansa Devi starts molding bricks at 2 a.m. at a brick kiln in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, to beat the sun. Spring temperatures here can reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat forces many brick makers to work early mornings and late afternoons. With the help of Ms. Devi’s husband and mother-in-law, the family can make 2,000 bricks a day, which earns them about $12. The money is barely enough for them to buy food and other essentials.

Image and Caption by Ann Hermes, India 2016.

On the night of April 13, Ram Jatan and Mahinder Vanvasi escaped from a brick kiln in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. They rode 12 miles on a bicycle to their home village to find help. The men and their families had been forced into bonded labor, unable to earn enough money to pay back the advances of 10,000 rupees, about $150, the kiln owner paid them three months ago. Now in hiding, the men are working with a local activist group to free their wives and children from the kiln.

Image and Caption by Ann Hermes, India 2016.