The coronavirus pandemic is threatening the future of a generation of the world's children, depriving them of schooling and sending them to work, reports AP.

Across the developing world, two decades of gains against child labour are eroding. With classrooms shuttered and parents losing their jobs, children are trading their ABCs for the D of drudgery: reading, writing and times tables are giving way to sweat, blisters and fading hopes for a better life.

Instead of going to school, children in Kenya are grinding rocks in quarries. Tens of thousands of children in India have poured into farm fields and factories. Across Latin America, kids are making bricks, building furniture and clearing brush, once after-school jobs that are now full-time work.

These children and adolescents are earning pennies or at best a few dollars a day to help put food on the table.