Jen's trip to Western Cambodia

At the beginning of the month, I took a work trip to the western Cambodian provinces of Battambang and Banteay Meanchey. Battambang province is home to Cambodia's second largest city, also named Battambang, and seems like a lovely town from my quick stop there. This old and stately building housed the provincial state capital.



Poipet, which is the largest town in Banteay Meanchey province, and has been described as "the armpit of Cambodia" is a more interesting if less attractive city. Poipet sits right on the Thai-Cambodian border, and ten years ago was nothing more than a dusty border crossing. Today, however, it's a quickly growing casino town, boasting nine places where Thai visitors can lose their money to the house. (With few exceptions, gambling is illegal in Thailand, so Poipet is very popular with Thais who make the 2 1/2 hour trip from Bangkok.) There's a 3 or 4 block area where the glitzy casinos with their manicured lawns look like something out of suburban America.


This quickly gives way to a more middle-class Cambodian sort of feel...



and within blocks from the casinos the city has transformed itself into a large slum.

I met with the governor of Banteay Meanchey during my visit, and he described Poipet as "heaven for the rich and hell for the poor". It certainly seems like an apt description to me. Poipet attracts tons of economic migrants, many hoping to land well-paying jobs in the casinos. Most, however, end up barely eking by. These two work as porters, ferrying goods across the border to the market just on the Thai side of the border.

Poipet is home to many poor and vulnerable children. Part of my portfolio is looking after US-funded programs to end child labor, so I did a bit of checking into the situation of working children in Poipet. Local government officials took us under the bridge spanning the Thai-Cambodian border, where we found these homeless children.



We also saw many children, like this boy, who work as child porters--smuggling clothing and other goods across the Thai border so sellers in Thailand can avoid paying customs duties on the clothes. A typical child porter might walk 12 miles a day just to earn $1.50, and if he is caught and fined by the police, he will be forced to pay many days' wages as a punishment for his illegal activity. Despite the risk of fines, child porters operate openly and we saw many children ferrying clothing back and forth along the banks of the river separating the two countries.


Perhaps saddest of all are the children who have been trafficked into Thailand to work as street beggars or street vendors of gum, candy, and flowers. Some are knowingly sold by desperate parents who can not feed their families, others are turned over to traffickers after parents are tricked into thinking that they will be given a better life by a good Samaritan. And some are kidnapped. In Thailand, they sleep on the streets of Bangkok and are controlled by organized gangs, who take their earnings.

This girl was trafficked into Thailand to work as a street beggar, but was deported by the Thai police and taken in by a local shelter for trafficked children called Damnoek Toek, which is partially funded by the US Deparment of Labor. Unfortunately, there are far more children who are repatriated to Cambodia than Damnoek Toek can accomodate. Few social services are available to repatriated children, and many end up living under the bridge or being re-trafficked into Thailand.