11-year-old Sagira Ansari, right, rolls bidi tobacco with her family at their house in Dhuliyan, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

Sagira is among hundreds of thousands of children toiling in the hidden corners of rural India, many working in hazardous industries crucial to the economy: the fiery brick kilns that underpin the building industry, the pesticide-laden fields that produce its food.

Sagira and nearly every other child in the town of Dhuliyan works through the tobacco dust to feed India's near limitless demand for the thin, tight cigarettes. Sagira and her family earn 75 rupees ($1.50) for every 1,000 bidis rolled which brings in about 7,500 ($150) a month. — Photos by AP