On the streets of Chennai, India, piles of filth spilled onto the road.

At night the sidewalks are lined with the homeless, a disturbing number of which are children. Underneath dirt-covered rags, groups of children huddle together trying to sleep, their thin arms draped around each other.

Nearby, a naked child no older than two is curled up in a wheelbarrow, sucking his left thumb. Many of them are not clothed, their nakedness an indication of their poverty and vulnerability.

While witnessing the severe poverty in the densely inhabited slums of Brazil and South Africa was devastating, it did not prepare me at all for my experience in India.

In India, it became apparent to me that children, who are the the most vulnerable and innocent beings on the planet, are essentially pawns in a real-life game of chess. Because of malnourishment and various harmful child labor practices, they have very limited movement and rudimentary physical capabilities.

The defining moment of my life-changing experience in Chennai was an overnight trip to the poor rural village of Kanchipuram to learn about child labor in the rural areas of India.

I spent two days with the Rural Institute for Development Education (RIDE), a private organization dedicated to eradicating child labor. According to its Web site, RIDE also works to promote economic and social justice for women, and to provide essential medical and educational services in Kanchipuram.

The time I spent with RIDE allowed me to see how the organization helps child laborers, and while we fortunately did not see the children working, RIDE founder S. Jeyaraj provided us with a lot of pertinent information regarding child labor in India.

"I started this organization because I was frustrated about the Indian education system and government," Jeyaraj said. "[Child Labor] is illegal, but the government is so corrupt it is not able to make regulations. As a result, millions of young children have no future."

The organization rescues child laborers and provides classroom instruction for the children after they've worked their 8- to 10-hour workdays.

This instruction will prepare them for the difficult transition into a state-accredited school.

RIDE has succeeded in reducing the incidents of child labor in Kanchipuram, with interventions benefiting over 30,000 children since 1997. RIDE has helped many of these children by offering their families alternative survival strategies.

There are 1.5 million child laborers in India who are illegally employed by American textile companies, hotels, agricultural farms and various subcontractors for reputable computer companies and automobile companies, such as Ford, Jeyaraj said.

A little girl named Geethamathi wore a bright yellow dress and had white dust smeared on her tiny head. While she seemed slightly lethargic from spending the last eight hours working at the regional quarry, once she met with us her eyes became lively and her smile became contagious.

This little girl is one of the thousands of child laborers who work in Kanchipuram that I was able to meet on my trip.

There were about 25 other children in her evening class, organized by RIDE, who work together at the same quarry.

RIDE's main goal is to ultimately free her from her obligation to the quarry and have her attend school full-time.

The children had tiny legs like toothpicks and knees that stuck out like large oranges. Many of the malnourished children had other physical deformities, such as missing fingers and respiratory sicknesses, from the quarry dust.

When I asked Jeyaraj why the company doesn't use a forklift, he explained that it is cheaper to use children. Child laborers working in the quarry only get paid five rupees per day (about eight cents), he said.

Injuries are also not addressed by factories after they occur. Jeyaraj said children injured in factories are not given proper medical attention in villages.

Often a disability will result in families throwing their children out onto the streets because they can no longer work to make money. But Jeyaraj said that even when considering everything else, the two most important things that these children lose are very fundamental.

"They've lost their childhood happiness, and they lost their education," he said. He pointed to his mouth as he said, "They've also lost their smiles."

Currently, more than 1,000 children work in two local factories surrounding Kanchipuram, the stone quarry and a Lacoste sweatshop.

Jeyaraj said that Lacoste, a popular clothing company for many American college students, uses child labor to make a lot of their apparel.

He said there are thousands of children working at Lacoste sweatshops in Chennai, Bombay, Dehli and Calcutta.

After learning this information, some Semester at Sea students, such as William Parent, said this experience will affect him for the rest of his life.

Parent said he will never again buy Lacoste, and every time he looks at the brand, he will think of the children he met in Chennai and of the poor treatment they receive.

"We go to class and we sleep afterwards," Parent said. "We work for eight hours and we sleep after. [These kids are] only 10 years old and they're stronger than I'll ever be."