Childhood seems more a nightmare than a playground: 180 million children work throughout the world; war has massacred 2 million, wounded 6 million and orphaned 1 million over the last five years; 100 million will never go to school and over half a billion live on less than a dollar a day. A child dies of poverty every three seconds.

Girls certainly bear the brunt of most exploitation but often the boys are overlooked: they too suffer abuse. In societies where sexism, violence and discrimination are tolerated, what happens to these boys once they're grown? Are the cruelty and injustice experienced by so many today the breeding grounds of tomorrow's killers?

In Boys, Toys and the Big Blue Marble abused and exploited youngsters all over the world speak about their lives and their amusements. They tell us of suffocating poverty as well as their hopes and dreams.

This tough documentary told from the boys' viewpoint is an appraisal of childhoods destroyed by slavery, criminality, war, sexual exploitation and human stupidity.

Once they've grown up, what will these millions of broken boys do? Take revenge? Destroy the women and children in their lives? If the world is now preparing the next generation, what can one hope for in a profoundly unjust society? Yet while some swear to take revenge, others are trying to repair their lives and those of their families.

The film examines themes such as slavery, war and criminality as experienced by boys in different countries, united by their games of marbles and soccer. Their childhood has been torn from them, but not their dreams.