Human Trafficking in [Cambodia] [other countries]Street Children in [Cambodia Child Prostitution in [Cambodia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years
of the 21st Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/streetchildren/Cambodia.htm
|
||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Eat To Live: Feeding Pol Pot's children Julia Watson, Posted at EARTHtimes.org, ki-media.blogspot.com/2007/05/eat-to-live-feeding-pol-pots-children.html [accessed 1 September 2011 January 2011] 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. Tots doing trade Debbita Tan, The Star ( thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/9/20/lifefocus/2033597&sec=lifefocus [accessed 13 April 2011] But the essence of Visitors often
arrive with images of the Angkor temples in their minds and leave with
memories of the local folk in their hearts.
Even harder to forget would be the faces of the street children. They
don’t have the luxuries of their counterparts in other countries. They are trying to sell something every
other minute just to ensure their survival.
One child told me, “No, no school for me. No play for me. You buy
postcards, please? I give good price.”
These kids will do anything to get through the day. They will play you
a medley of tunes using the handmade flutes they are hoping to sell. They will pose with snakes coiled around
their little necks in exchange for payment. Their desperate situation also
means that they are a prime target for child prostitution and child sex
trafficking. ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF
– www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cambodia.html [accessed 13 April 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/cambodia.htm [accessed 26 January 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Street children engage in scavenging, begging, shoe
polishing, and other income generating activities. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61604.htm [accessed 26 January 2011] 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 In June 2004 the
governor of Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 2
June 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/cambodia2000.html [accessed 26 January 2011] [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. On the mean streets of Poipet [PDF] May Titthara and
Eleanor Ainge Roy, The www.gouttedeau.org/fileadmin/csn/Justin/Poipet_article.pdf [accessed 13 April 2011] GANGLAND RULES - According to Kheav Bory from the rights
group Adhoc, most of Poipet's
street children are organised into gangs, which are
usually about 50 to 60 members strong.
The older gangsters, generally aged between 20 and 25 years, make
their living "leading" the group, and the younger members pay the
older members to take care of them. I
know the things I do are bad for society, but society does not care about me.
In return they are offered protection from rival gangs, food and often drugs
- usually glue or metamphetamine - to feed their
addictions, which Adhoc claims many gang members
actually encourage as a means to control the children. Drug use is endemic, while physical and
sexual abuse is common and likely to go unpunished, Kheav Bory said. "The local authorities largely ignore
the gangs of street children, as they have no way to make money off of
them," Kheav Bory
said. "They will only act when
the gangs turn violent towards each other, or robberies become too
frequent." Tots doing trade Debbita Tan, The Star ( thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/9/20/lifefocus/2033597&sec=lifefocus [accessed 13 April 2011] But the essence of Visitors often
arrive with images of the Angkor temples in their minds and leave with
memories of the local folk in their hearts.
Even harder to forget would be the faces of the street children. They
don’t have the luxuries of their counterparts in other countries. They are trying to sell something every
other minute just to ensure their survival.
One child told me, “No, no school for me. No play for me. You buy
postcards, please? I give good price.”
These kids will do anything to get through the day. They will play you
a medley of tunes using the handmade flutes they are hoping to sell. They will pose with snakes coiled around
their little necks in exchange for payment. Their desperate situation also
means that they are a prime target for child prostitution and child sex
trafficking. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
IRIN, www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79917 [accessed 13 April 2011] Shirtless, with
crude tattoos and scabs on his upper arms, 24-year-old Thom has been living
on the streets of NEW DRUG OF CHOICE - The NACD report
also says there has been a shift in usage, mainly by Cambodian youth who have
switched from glue-sniffing to “ice”.
In 2000 a survey produced by Mith Samlanh, a local NGO that rehabilitates street children
in Travel Blog: Anna Kainberger,
Travel Blog, 30 Jan 2008 www.travelbite.co.uk/travel-news/asia/cambodia/travel-blog-cambodia-country-children-$485000.htm [accessed 13 April 2011] Student documents plight of Clayton Norlen,
The Daily This article has been archived by World
Street Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 September 2011] In 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 Julia Watson, Posted at EARTHtimes.org, ki-media.blogspot.com/2007/05/eat-to-live-feeding-pol-pots-children.html [accessed 1 September 2011 January 2011] 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 Nattha Keenapan,
United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, www.unicef.org/thailand/reallives_6619.html [accessed 13 April 2011] 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 The Star ( ki-media.blogspot.com/2006/12/festival-with-heart-for-change.html [accessed 13 April 2011] 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 Stuart Isett,
Consulter le lien, actuphoto, 2007-12-08 www.actuphoto.com/3808-about-angkor-photography-festival.html [accessed 13 April 2011] 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 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] There are 1,200
street-living children in Children In Mith Samlanh
Friends, At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] During this period
of rapid change in Mealtime of
Street Children Editorial -- Submitted by: ThaRum, 26 May 2005 editorials.cambodia.org/2005/05/mealtime-of-street-children.html [accessed 13 April 2011] As a shoes polish
boy in the city of Rays of Hope on
Dark Streets in Antonio Graceffo,
Readers' Submissions, Tales of www.talesofasia.com/rs-37-streets.htm [accessed 13 April 2011] 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 - This report is taken from “A Civil Society
Forum for East and South East Asia on Promoting and Protecting the Rights of
Street Children”, 12-14 March 2003, At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] 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 Vannaphone Sitthirath,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=24415 [accessed 14 April 2011] Samnang would soon turn to
the streets of ''Samnang will be treated with trepidation because he's
sick and will be segregated. Other people in the community also treat him
very badly. It really has an enormous impact,'' he added. ''He will have no
choice but to turn to the streets.'' ''HIV/AIDS is one
of the main factors that push children into difficult circumstances like
being street children, being beggars and so on,'' said Marot Lost and Found - Children Orphaned by AIDS are Finding a
Home in the Pagoda Michelle Vachon,
The www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/lost_found_1.htm [accessed 14 April 2011] “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.” During a recent
visit, Homeland had 409 children under its care—street children, AIDS
orphans, kids returning after being sold to work in Thailand. Children have to agree to discipline, to
handle their share of chores and to go to school in order to live at the
center; they are free to leave at any time.
Homeland workers send children back to their families only after
investigation. Mao Lang refuses to let the older sister of 13-year-old Try Raksmei take her back home; she believes Try Raksmei’s sister will sell her again to the broker who
took her to Thailand to work. Try Raksmei has been
at the center one year. Street children World Vision At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] [scroll down] 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 All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - |
Human Trafficking in [Cambodia] [other countries]Street Children in [Cambodia Child Prostitution in [Cambodia] [other countries]