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Synopsis We all know that child labour is one of the faces of poverty and that many efforts over many years will be required to eliminate it completely. But, there are some forms of child labour today which are intolerable by any standard. These deserve to be identified, exposed and eradicated without further delay. The problem of child labour is so enormous and the need for action is urgent, choices must be made about where to concentrate available human and material resources. The most humane strategy must therefore be to focus scarce resources first on the most intolerable forms of child prostitution, work in hazardous occupations and industries, and the very young, especially girls. In addition, a comparative study carried out over a period of 17 years in India on bother children who attend school and children who instead work in agriculture, industry or the service sector showed that working children grow up shorter and weigh less than school children. In Bombay, the health of children working in hotels, restaurants, construction and elsewhere was found to be considerably inferior to that of a control group of non working school children. Working children exhibited symptoms of constant muscular, chest and abdominal pain, headaches, dizziness, respiratory infections, diarrhoea and worm infection.