At over three million, Peru has the highest child labour rate in the Americas.

Officially the practice is banned, but many poor families rely on the money their children earn. Of the nation's three million child labourers, aged between five and 17, 70 per cent of them are engaging in activities that endanger their lives.

Now, thanks to the nation's first children's union, which monitors and defends minors who work, many of those children are getting some added protection.  

Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanchez reports from Lima.