Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:Corner near City Mall?

Yup. Corner of Monireath and Sihanouk (Nehru,) just past City Mall, (on Monireath, turning left onto Sihanouk.) The little girl (sitting) with the baby was amazingly sad. She couldn't have been but 4 or 5 herself, and the baby was almost half her size and weighting her down. She tried to beg from passing cars but wasn't tall enough to reach the window or be seen, so she sat there on the median in frustration, other children admonishing her to stand up and work, cars racing by inches away.

juansweetpotato wrote:How the other half live ^

I get your meaning, but it's not really 'the other half.' Ranked into broad classes in Cambodia, more like the other 80% or 90% or 99%, depending how you count. But on an even slightly finer scale, these people - landless, homeless, hungry and on the street - represent a much smaller percentage of the population than half, but one that seems to be growing at a disturbing rate. And these kid's in the photo represent a small but particularly tragic subset of that - the most vulnerable of the vulnerable (young children of the homeless poor) who have somehow been caught up in a highly exploitative game.

LTO wrote:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:Corner near City Mall?

Yup. Corner of Monireath and Sihanouk (Nehru,) just past City Mall, (on Monireath, turning left onto Sihanouk.) The little girl (sitting) with the baby was amazingly sad. She couldn't have been but 4 or 5 herself, and the baby was almost half her size and weighting her down. She tried to beg from passing cars but wasn't tall enough to reach the window or be seen, so she sat there on the median in frustration, other children admonishing her to stand up and work, cars racing by inches away.

juansweetpotato wrote:How the other half live ^

I get your meaning, but it's not really 'the other half.' Ranked into broad classes in Cambodia, more like the other 80% or 90% or 99%, depending how you count. But on an even slightly finer scale, these people - landless, homeless, hungry and on the street - represent a much smaller percentage of the population than half, but one that seems to be growing at a disturbing rate. And these kid's in the photo represent a small but particularly tragic subset of that - the most vulnerable of the vulnerable (young children of the homeless poor) who have somehow been caught up in a highly exploitative game.

Not a bad appraisal. So hard to know the real facts. A lot of them are being exploited by the wealthy I would say. Probably more that any of us want to believe. You should know the facts surely? Why is it so hard to find out after so much work that has been done in this area. We should be 100% sure by now. Shirley?

Perhaps we could ask the UK Embassy to set up a relief fund...

juansweetpotato wrote:Not a bad appraisal. So hard to know the real facts. A lot of them are being exploited by the wealthy I would say. Probably more that any of us want to believe...

If they are not connected to family (and sometimes even if they are) their immediate exploiters are Fagins who take their money but probably aren't a whole lot better off than they are - older street kids and little mamas. Above that, low level traffickers and gang leaders that take their cut, move them in, out and around the city and country, sometimes to Thailand and/or Vietnam. And of course the low and mid level police and officials taking bribes to allow them to beg in certain areas and be moved around. The wealthy exploiters are the top military and police who are paid by the trafficking gangs to be allowed to move them out of their villages, distances and across borders.

Then again, some of them are just kids from poor, displaced, homeless families here in the city, perhaps victims of land grabbing, or maybe, as was suggested earlier, simply urbanization.

NEWS FLASH

Poor people are skint!

According to a recent report by a Lexus 430 barang passenger, their dashboard cologne retaining driver is shown in the rear view mirror -

Poor people have been photographed begging on the streets!

There is some confusion if the poor people are involved with the 'top military' or 'then again, some of them are just kids from poor, displaced, homeless families here in the city'.

Amazing revelations.

I recommend a soothing ointment, perhaps with a touch of aloe.

juansweetpotato wrote:

LTO wrote:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:Corner near City Mall?

Yup. Corner of Monireath and Sihanouk (Nehru,) just past City Mall, (on Monireath, turning left onto Sihanouk.) The little girl (sitting) with the baby was amazingly sad. She couldn't have been but 4 or 5 herself, and the baby was almost half her size and weighting her down. She tried to beg from passing cars but wasn't tall enough to reach the window or be seen, so she sat there on the median in frustration, other children admonishing her to stand up and work, cars racing by inches away.

juansweetpotato wrote:How the other half live ^

I get your meaning, but it's not really 'the other half.' Ranked into broad classes in Cambodia, more like the other 80% or 90% or 99%, depending how you count. But on an even slightly finer scale, these people - landless, homeless, hungry and on the street - represent a much smaller percentage of the population than half, but one that seems to be growing at a disturbing rate. And these kid's in the photo represent a small but particularly tragic subset of that - the most vulnerable of the vulnerable (young children of the homeless poor) who have somehow been caught up in a highly exploitative game.

Not a bad appraisal. So hard to know the real facts. A lot of them are being exploited by the wealthy I would say. Probably more that any of us want to believe. You should know the facts surely? Why is it so hard to find out after so much work that has been done in this area. We should be 100% sure by now. Shirley?

Unfortunately, I think you'll struggle to get any facts or recommendation's to either effect or manage change from the likes of the aforementioned.
Just another expensive addition to the growing in-country negative balance sheet of hapless and useless.

Actually there are a few NGOs out there gathering this sort of data and making recommendations. For example, Friends International. Here is a link to the resource page:
http://friends-international.org/aboutu ... m=au&sm=rs

And a couple of dated links:
http://friends-international.org/resour ... e_2011.pdf
http://www.friends-international.org/re ... Report.pdf

You can buy hardcopies of these reports as well as more up to date ones at Friends on Street 13, just off Street 178

There is an organisation CDRI - Cambodia Development Resource Institute
http://www.cdri.org.kh/index.htm
These folks certainly issue numerous studies with regard to Cambodia.


http://www.cdri.org.kh/Development%20Partners.htm
This is their funding partners; [USAID] and the now usual financial institutions providing funds and pulling the strings.


Would be great if anyone knew of these folks or was involved with this organisation to provide any info on what these folks actually do.

The area I incorrectly identified as being the place where LTO took his photo: the bit of grass in front of Chenla Theatre
has just been described by Koh Santepheap as being "anarchic" and over run by beggar families on the grass and minibus drivers parking illegally (although having paid bribes) around the perimeter.
I predict the authorities will 'clamp down' on this area soon and 'move them along'. It's too close to the Intercon and too near all the upper-mddle class car drivers in the rush hour crawl.
http://kohsantepheapdaily.com.kh/article/121583.html