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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