Cambodian child beggars sent back home [... from Thailand: A shame for Hun Xen's regime?]

21/07/2012
Bangkok Post

SA KAEO : Eighteen Cambodian child beggars aged one to 10 were yesterday detained in a raid at a Thai-Cambodian border market, checked for hand, foot and mouth disease and forced to return to their country.

The anti-HFMD operation was jointly conducted by local disease control and immigration authorities at Rong Kluea market in Aranyaprathet district.

Some children found to have a high fever of more than 39C and runny noses were separated from the group over HFMD concerns, said Thanakris Saisin, a disease control officer at the Aranyaprathet immigration checkpoint.

The sick were immediately taken to Cambodian health authorities at Poipet border checkpoint, he said.

Pol Lt Col Uthaiwan Promnok, chief of Sa Kaeo's immigration police, said local immigration police were instructed by the Royal Thai Police to work with other agencies to thoroughly check the Cambodian child beggars at the Rong Kluea market for possible signs of HFMD and to force them back into Cambodia.

Cambodian beggars in HCM City [-Is this Hun Xen's prosperity and development?]

Cambodian child beggars in HCM City.

30/10/2009

VietNamNet Bridge – A small group of Cambodian child beggars have appeared in HCM City in recent months.

At 6pm at a crossroads on Dien Bien Phu street, three kids in ragged and dirty clothes, holding plastic bowls stand at traffic lights asking for small change.

The two older children collect the cash while a much younger child lies naked on the pavement.

They eventually disperse when they hear a police whistle. Next day they are back – but this time the group includes six children and two women.

The two women sat on the pavement while six children divided into three groups, work around the roundabout of Dien Bien Phu street.

From asking around reporters traced them back to a marshy piece of land along the Nguyen Huu Tho road, District 7, which looks like a dumping ground. There are several tents made of coconut leaves and a small house.

Local residents say the house owner pitied the children so he allowed them to live in the house free. They also said that there are over 50 Cambodian people who have been living in this area for around 7 months.

A Cambodian man, who can speak a little Vietnamese, told VietNamNet that they came from Cambodia and they often return home each 3-4 months.

These Cambodian earn their living by collecting waste and begging.

Local government has several times sent them back home but they returned, said Tran Mong Thanh, chairman of Tan Hung ward. Thanh said there are many other Cambodians in HCM City, not only in his ward.

Mai Thi Hoa from the HCM City Department of War Invalids and Social Affairs said that under the HCM City’s regulations, all beggars will be gathered at social patronage centres and then be sent back to their homes.

Attack of the urchins

October 1, 2008
John Moffat
The Age (Australia)

John Moffat tries to stay ahead of the begging pack in Cambodia.

It begins as soon as I cross the Thai border. They're coming in waves, pecking at me from all directions like Hitchcock's birds. I'm caught off balance. In Thailand, apart from the occasional leper, beggars are not nearly as common as they once were. But I'm shedding Thai baht like a snake shedding its skin, only much faster.

Grimy, snotty-nosed and bedraggled, they're as relentless as little machines. Are they in fact tiny cyborgs, wound up and unleashed on unsuspecting tourists? This is my first taste of Cambodian urchin power.

There are older beggars - landmine victims and amputees from any number of Cambodia's agonised writhings, also difficult to ignore - but they are usually independent operators. In contrast, the urchins hunt in packs and, as with any pack animal, there seems to be an almost telepathic co-ordination of their efforts to bring down their prey.

They are well-disciplined and ruthless. For instance, when I find myself being run to ground in Phnom Penh, I try, in rising desperation, to divert my tormentors onto the trail of another, much more affluent-looking, prospect: "What's wrong with him? He must have lots of money."

It doesn't work. Only one member of the pack breaks away to harry the new target, but quickly loses interest and returns to resume his part in my gradual but certain grinding down. They know, probably instinctively, not to dissipate their force but to maintain a laser-like focus - on me.

The undisputed ringleader is a tough little nut of about eight. Her hair is matted, she wears a tattered dress and has a mucousy infant perched on her hip. The child, probably a borrowed prop, stares at me like an adder. Nice touch. Does aggressive urchin training begin in the delivery room?

The girl switches him from hip to hip with the adroitness of a mother as I affect changes of pace and side-steps to try to get around her. Her monotonously repeated entreaty is like a hypnotic mantra - "One dollar all round," she says, a circular motion of her little hand stirring the air above her. This is made to sound extremely reasonable; it's not as though I'm being asked to part with a dollar per head - an American dollar, I might add. "One dollar all round. We leave you alone." Aha! The naked truth, straight from her mouth: this is little more than protection money.

But I already knew that, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay.

However, there is no sign of any let-up. We've travelled at least 300 metres in a tight, Keystone Cop-like little group. I've crossed the road to try to shake them. The traffic scares me but has little effect on them. I have a surreal vision of them packed into the seats beside me on the flight back to Australia. "One dollar all around. OK? You pay?"

Denial begins to evaporate. They've got me. I know it; they know it. I'm a trapped rat. But I'm not going down without a fight. I can play hard ball, too.

Anything can be haggled over here, including the price of protection. I reckon I can get away from them for half a dollar, but to go below a dollar means leaving the de facto currency and dealing in the official currency - not nearly as prized but it will do at a pinch. This is no problem for them; they can do instant currency conversions - dollar, riel, baht, whatever.

"Will you leave me alone for 2000 riel?" This is the moment of truth. The bull faces the sword; the matador faces the horns. Our little group has stopped dead. All eyes are on the leader. She thinks. Her dark little eyes are well into the thousand-yard stare.

"Yes," she finally says. The wave of relief that washes over me makes me feel utterly ridiculous. I hand her the notes. "Thank you very much," she says, as sweetly as a southern belle. So sweetly, in fact, that I hand her the other half-dollar.

She smiles, and it is the smile of the conqueror.

Tourism: Buying a book from either a landmine victim or a child is ... money better spent than paying the US$6 admission fee at the grand palace

Travel Blog: Cambodia - country of children

Wednesday, 30 Jan 2008
Anna Kainberger
TravelBite (UK)

Anna Kainberger is taking a year-out from her career to travel in south-east Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific, along with Hawaii and the USA. This month she will be reporting from Laos and Cambodia. Here is her eighth blog entry:

I crossed the boarder from Laos into Cambodia at Strung Treng, where it was a simple matter of filling out a few forms, handing over US$22 and a picture to retrieve a one month visa for Cambodia.

When then showing your passport to the authorities you pay another US$2 "stamp fee": probably more of a back pocket tip for the customs officials.

But keep smiling and get it over with; after all hanging around at the boarder in the glistening hot sun arguing with Cambodian officials is not really something I would recommend.

From Strung Treng it was another three hours to Kratie, where I stopped for the night as I simply couldn't face nine hours straight on a bus after my very relaxing holiday in the 4,000 Islands.

Kratie is a small town nestled at the Mekong and is another great place to spot the Irrawaddy dolphins. Boats and drivers can be hired from the pier for as little as US$4-5.

I skipped more dolphin sighting tours and just enjoyed a fresh cool coconut at the river front, watching one of the best sunsets I have seen so far. I wondered if the afterglow could be any more colourful, taking one picture after the other, unable to believe my eyes.

After a night in what I would call a plush hostel (US$4) with my own bathroom and a fan, I got up early again the next day to continue my journey down towards Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, where I arrived at 15:00 the same day.

Watching the landscape from my window seat, the thing that immediately caught my eye was the massive piles of plastic and plastic bags flying around the fields and roads.

Cambodia seems to be buried in heaps of plastic and whilst this particular road was tarmac, it was not the most pleasant journey I have experienced.

The second thing I noted was that there are endless numbers of children around; playing along the street, walking, hitchhiking and waving at the tourist buses.

Arriving in Phnom Penh I had to fight off several tuk-tuk drivers, as they are very keen to take you to a hotel of your choice, or drop you off at one of their own recommendations to earn a small commission.

One million of Cambodia's 13 million inhabitants live in Phnom Penh and it is not easy to navigate around initially, as there is no main traveller's centre.

The variety of accommodation is endless - from a cheap hostel costing US$2-3 per night up to a five star luxury hotel - you can take your pick.
Most backpackers and travellers stay around Riverside, where it is not far to the Grand Palace, the National Museum and the vast number of pubs, bars and clubs overlooking the river.

The town itself offers an interesting variety of buildings, from French colonial through to wooden stake huts and traditional Khmer style houses. You will find anything and everything right next to each other.

It boasts two main markets. The central market is called Phsar Thom Thmei (apparently this is the more expensive one), where you will find shoes, clothes, jewellery, sunglasses, food, flowers, electrical equipment, fake watches and so on and so forth.

The Russian market (Toul Tom Poung) is the cheaper option and also sells a lot of household goods, clothing, silks, DVDs and other digital and electrical goods and food, (both wholesale and retail mind you).

Phnom Penh is also the location of the infamous Tuol Seng Torture prison, or S21, and the "killing fields", or the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre, is located 15Km southwest of the city centre.

These show the legacy of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime. Between 1975 and 1979 two million Cambodians were starved, executed or tortured to death.

Pol Pot's regime wanted to create a farming communist country, cleansing its people of anyone who was educated, part of the former government or simply wearing glasses.

The Khmer Rouge also placed an unknown number of landmines across the whole of Cambodia, without drawing maps, mind you, so to this day straying off the trodden path is a big no-no.

Clearing work is taking place but it is going very slowly, so my advice is to stay clear of the jungle.

To understand the Cambodian people it is vital to see what crimes the Khmer Rouge committed in just the four years of their reign of terror.

Today Choeung Ek is a memorial marked by a Buddhist stupa filled with 8,000 skulls of victims who were executed here, most of them former inmates of S21.

Visiting S21 will send chills up and down any hard-trodden traveller's spine. The torture prison was located in the middle of town in a former high school.

The prision cells have been left unchanged, sporting torture tools you would not be able to dream up in your worst nightmares, as well as pictures of the bodies found in the individual cells.

The Khmer Rouge meticulously took pictures of every person admitted to S21 and huge black and white photographs are shown on display, a reminder of the many men, women and children who were killed.

Any Cambodian alive today has lost at least one member of their family to the Khmer Rouge. The thing that struck me most about Cambodia was that the average age is about 25-40.

Phnom Penh is also a city full of begging street children; orphans living in the street trying to survive on the money they are able to beg from tourists.

In perfect English these children will explain to you that they want your half-drunk can of coke because they are starving.

If you want to do something for these kids you should gather them together and take them to dinner or lunch at any of the local food stalls.

You can feed ten kids for as little as US$3-4. There is also a lot of organised begging and book selling going on in the capital and I was not sure if the kids were actually able to keep the money or had to hand it to a superior.

Buying a book from either a landmine victim or a child is another option for putting some money back into the community - money better spent than paying the US$6 admission fee at the grand palace.

For me three days of Phnom Phen was enough before I moved on to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Temples.