Human Trafficking in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]
 

Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children

Kingdom of Cambodia                                                              [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Kingdom of Cambodia [map], a SE Asian constitutional monarchy, is bordered by Laos (N), by Vietnam (E), by the Gulf of Thailand (S), and by Thailand (W & N).  Phnom Penh is its capital and largest city.  After decades of war and civil strife, Cambodia has enjoyed relative peace for the past several years and is steadily rebuilding its shattered infrastructure, society and economy.

 

CAUTION:  The following links and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Cambodia.  Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

Quick Search for Missing Children - Select Gender, Country (Cambodia), and Years Missing

UNICEF - The Big Picture

U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Street children engage in scavenging, begging, shoe polishing, and other income generating activities.

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

CHILDREN - Child abuse was believed to be common, although no statistics were available. A domestic NGO estimated that more than 1,200 street children in Phnom Penh had no relationship with their families and more than 10 thousand children worked on the streets but returned to their family homes in the evenings. It was estimated that there were between 500 and 1,500 children living with their families on the streets in provincial towns. A local NGO reported a monthly intake of approximately 60 street children into its shelter for vocational and literacy training. The NGO reported observing 80 to 100 new children on the street every month. The Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans, and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSAVY) provided lower statistics, reporting 3,084 street children nationwide.

In June 2004 the governor of Phnom Penh began a controversial roundup of street children who were deemed "an eyesore to the outside tourists." The media reported that government officials stated the children were being sent to an NGO in Banteay Meanchey Province for drug rehabilitation. Many children were released on the roadside outside the city and subsequently returned to Phnom Penh; however, some children were never accounted for, and no NGO claimed to have received them.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2000

[28] The Committee recommends that the State party ensure that all the rights enshrined in the Convention are enjoyed by all children, without any distinction. The Committee further recommends that the State party take effective measures to eliminate discrimination against girls, in particular with regard to their access to education. Efforts need to be made to eliminate discrimination against children living and/or working on the streets and children belonging to minority groups, especially of Vietnamese origin.

Student documents plight of Cambodian street children

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, it is common for children living on the streets to beg, sell books, offer shoeshines or fall into the sex trade just to survive.

Alder described scenes in Cambodia where young children between the ages of six and 17 would carry around infants, rented from mothers, to aid in their begging.

According to the documentary, there are currently 24,000 children living on the streets in Cambodia.

Childsafe.org explains that the money tourists give to children who are begging or selling items doesn't help the situation because children are still on the streets and not in school. The money children make is often split between gangs they may be involved with or given back to the family members and bullies who sent them to work on the streets.  "Tourists are unaware that they are contributing to the problems with street children by giving money to children directly," Garcia said. "Tourists are adding to the problem because they feel guilty or want the children to go away."

Eat To Live: Feeding Pol Pot's children

These, though, are not the food of the poor, but popular snacks. What the city poor eat in this staggeringly impoverished country is what they can scavenge from garbage dumps, those putrid-smelling piles of rubbish mixed with plastic bags and food scraps piled on every street corner and in every gutter.  The visible city poor are children, as young as 5 years old. Their parents more than likely have HIV/AIDS, or have sent them in from the countryside to support the family.  This is a nation of no contraception. When foreign NGOs distribute birth control methods in the villages, they are seldom used; farmers need workers in the fields.  In the city and towns, children are useful earners as beggars or prostitutes -- for their families if they have one, for themselves if not. So long as tourists support them, there is no incentive to seek out the few opportunities for education.

As you sit on the sidewalk outside in the steaming Cambodian night, eating the mild local fish curry happily named Fish Amok, children below the age of 7 stagger by barefoot with small babies on their shoulders. Some drag boxes behind them. When they want a break from their begging, they crawl into them for a brief rest and to bottle-feed their tiny charges as the tourists buy a 10 cent shoeshine while sipping their ice-cold beer.

Begging some difficult questions

Puen, 11, sits down quietly in the noisy classroom ready to begin his language class. This shelter is not new to him and many of his classmates are not strangers. The children at Ban Phumvet, who range from two to 17 years old, have been rescued from the street and will stay at the shelter before being sent back to Cambodia. Many, like Puen, have been through this process before; and many will be back again.

"I went back to Cambodia [after being caught last time] and found that my father had left us for another woman" said Puen. "Now my mother and I don't have a home. My mother told me to come here again to beg so that we will have enough money to build a house. She said I can go to school when we have the house and she will buy me a bicycle.

Festival with a heart for change

They recorded the struggle of the street children’s parents who grew up in a country that had practically returned to medieval times. And they’ve been recording the lives of those children, too.

But they grew tired of taking pictures of dead-end kids living in sad conditions. Stepping out of the detached, journalistic role they’ve had to play all these years, these photographers decided to do something for the children.

About Angkor Photography Festival

OUTREACH: STREET CHILDREN AT THE HEART OF THE FESTIVAL - The Angkor Photography Festival organizes an outreach program for Siem Reap’s street children. In October 2005, two workshops were conducted for them: one on photography and another on self-expression through a combination of dance and photography.

Antoine d’Agata introduced the children to photography as a means of articulating their perception of the world. The children, the majority of whose parents are handicapped from landmine blasts or afflicted with AIDS, created a photographic mosaic with pictures of their lives.

Consortium for Street Children

There are 1,200 street-living children in Phnom Penh; 10,000 to 20,000 street-working children, and hundreds of children who are living with their family on the streets.

Children In Cambodia

During this period of rapid change in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh in particular, lone children as well as entire families are finding themselves in new situations. The entire structure of many families was destroyed as a result of the massive killings and separations during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Mealtime of Street Children

As a shoes polish boy in the city of Phnom Penh, he work more than 8 hours a day, much more than ordinary people. Unfortunately he earns much less than them

Rays of Hope on Dark Streets in Phnom Penh

The boys told me that they could buy a large quantity of glue for only 5,000 Riels ($1.20 USD), which they could earn in a day of begging and shinning shoes. But if they didn't have the 5,000 Riels, there was a nice Khmer lady who purchased bottles of glue, and resold it in smaller containers for as little as 500 Riels.

Information about Street Children - Cambodia [DOC]

Malnutrition is high (35% of all street children registered in 2002 displayed stunted growth).  Poor mental health is an issue for street children who show low self-esteem and exhibit self-destructive behavior.

AIDS Orphans Turn to Streets for Survival

Samnang will soon turn to the streets of Phnom Penh for survival. ''His grandmother is old and cannot go on providing for him and his sisters. He will be forced to the streets'

Lost and Found  - Children Orphaned by AIDS are Finding a Home in the Pagoda

 “We try so hard,” said Muny Vansaveth. “For 10 years, it was very difficult—we had no funds. We wanted to protect them from being sold to prostitution.”

Street children

SOKHOM’S STORY - As a young teenager, Sokhom thought he could help his parents escape poverty by finding work in the city.  He left their small farm in rural Cambodia and found a job as a construction working in the capital, Phnom Penh. But the heavy labor was too difficult for him.  Sokhom became one of the thousands of children living on Phnom Penh’s streets, begging for food and sleeping on the ground because he couldn’t afford to return home.

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Human Trafficking in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Cambodia]  [other countries]