Child Labor on Stung meanchey
IHT: Cambodia's desperate children

Cambodia's desperate children

David Barboza/NYT Monday, August 25, 2003

PHNOM PENH It is one of the saddest sights in this capital, a sprawling garbage
dump where trash fires burn and plumes of black smoke choke the air with toxic
gases.
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The workers here are mostly children, hundreds of them, aged 7, 10, 13 and all
ages between.
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Some of them, like Kong Siehar, 13, work in the dump barefoot and shirtless,
combing through mounds of rubbish for tin cans, plastic bags and other
recyclable goods.
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"I'm looking for something good, something I can sell," the boy said one day as
he poked his stick in a small mound, strewn with crushed milk cartons, detergent
and condoms. "I know it's difficult work, but I want to help my family. I need
to help my family."
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Children toil for about 50 cents a day here at the Stung Meanchey Municipal
Waste Dump, which covers 40 hectares, or about 100 acres. It is perilous work.
The waste is soggy and huge bulldozers rumble through here, dumping pile upon
pile. The children show up at local health clinics with rashes, infections, cuts
and bruises.
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"This is the closest thing to hell on earth I've ever seen," said David Pred,
who is trying to assist orphans from the dump site. "I don't understand how
people can allow a place like this to exist."
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Health officials say the dump site is extremely treacherous. Two years ago, a
Japanese study found dangerously high levels of dioxin in the soil and large
amounts of heavy metals in the metabolisms of children who work in the dump.
Dioxin, which can come from burning chemicals, is a highly toxic chemical that
has been linked to cancer. Cambodia is not alone in allowing children to work as
scavengers at dump sites. There are thousands of child laborers in places like
this one in Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina and the
Dominican Republic.
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The Cambodian government seems indifferent to this dangerous form of largely
unsupervised child labor. Although it is illegal in Cambodia for anyone under 18
to do hazardous work, such laws go unenforced, local people say.
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Seng Sagn, 53, the commune chief at Stung Meanchey, said: "I'm worried about the
health of the kids and accidents can happen to them any time when they are
picking up trash. Trucks have run over some children and bulldozers have buried
some kids under the trash."
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People here and in other countries say solutions are hard to find. Locking
people out of the dump means denying them work and income; allowing them to work
could mean endangering their lives.
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"Governments have tried to suppress these activities, but it doesn't work," said
Martin Medina, who is writing a book on garbage scavengers. "If you put up a
fence, they cut a hole in it; or they pay bribes. You can't stop them. You have
to find a way to support them."
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Many children at Stung Meanchey start as early as 3 a.m., when some of the first
garbage trucks arrive. They often leave well after 7 in the evening, when it
becomes too dark to forage.
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Even on the hottest days of the year, when temperatures soar and the air becomes
nearly unbreathable, children as young as 5 can be seen sifting through the
smoldering trash heaps and racing after the garbage trucks that arrive with
fresh loads of refuse.
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There are children who jump into the jaws of garbage trucks to fish things out
before they even reach the dump site. The drivers do not seem to mind.
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When a vehicle - any vehicle - crosses into the dump site, the children fling
their bags of tin cans in front of the wheels, hoping to crush their cans to
increase the bag space.
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Many of the children here were born into impoverished families that moved to the
area from the countryside after Pol Pot's murderous regime lost power.
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But instead of finding urban fortunes, many of them settled in a slum that was
erected along the rim of Stung Meanchey, a dump infested with flies that
gravitate to the leaching refuse, the dregs of a nation.
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About 10,000 people live in the slum that borders Stung Meanchey, and nearby, at
a school called the Center for Children to Happiness, 16 orphaned children who
were brought from the dump now live and learn.
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Relief groups say the dump is home to a large number of orphans who lost their
parents to AIDS, prostitution or drug abuse.
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The school, largely paid for by the Japanese government, teaches the children
sewing, hair dressing, music, computer skills and English. Their brief lives
before this are told in the biographies that are posted on a bulletin board near
the school's entrance.
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Theara Chhem, 9, and her sister, Thavery, lost both parents to AIDS in 2000;
Sambo Lon, 7, was abandoned by a divorced mother; Kunthea Nim, 10, lost her
father to a land mine in 1997. That same year, her mother died during
childbirth.
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"I didn't like the work," Ratha Eng, 11, who lost both parents to AIDS, said of
the dump site. "Some kids would hit and push me to get garbage."
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Ratprong Un, a girl of 12 who still works at the dump, is trying to earn money
to pay off her parents' debt.
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She wears a stained white blouse and a pair of soiled long pants. Her sandals
are too big, and her hair, which bobs down to her shoulders, is tucked under a
dusty, purple knit hat that protects her eyes from the scorching sun.
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She carries a metal pick to help her poke through the garbage, and a white
burlap sack that she uses to collect her recyclable goods. "I've been working
here for three years," she said.
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The New York Times



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