Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia. More than 60% of the population live for less than two dollars a day. Furthermore, the population suffers poor protection of their human rights due to a corrupt judicial system. This puts Cambodian children at considerable risk for exploitation, trafficking, violence and breaches on their legal rights.
”The general problem in Cambodia is, that there is no separate law dealing with the rights of children.” Pernille Tind Simmons, coordinator at DanChurchAid Cambodia, explains.
”Children are not understood as individuals with special needs for understanding and protection.”
In Cambodia, children do hard physical labour and if they commit crimes, they are sentenced to jail in the same prisons as grown-ups.
DanChurchAid has focused on these issues together with partners LAC and LICADHO, to create awareness about the special rights of children in Cambodia.
”Our campaign on childrens rights had three main activities; creating and training child protection groups, providing legal aid to children in contact with the judicial system and lobbying for childrens rights among decision makers and the general population.” Says Pernille
Hard work in the brick factories
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| Children in brick factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Phot: Josh Kramer |
One of the more successful aspects of the campaign for childrens rights, was the awareness raising being done on brick factories. There are dozens of these factories on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, and most employ minors. The children do hard, physical labor under dangerous conditions, which often impedes their physical development. Also, working on the factories also means, that the kids don’t have time to go to school.
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| DanChurchAid is no longer working with child rights protecion in Cambodia. LICADHO og LAC continue their work in prisons and factories. |
During the campaign, awareness-raising was conducted among the factory owners and parents, and this approach worked. Now, the working conditions on several factories have improved, the children don’t do hard physical labor, and are allowed to go to school in the mornings.
Children in prison
Cambodia has a poor rule of law in general. Unless you can afford to bribe the judge and police, Cambodians risk going to jail without fair trial or facing a corrupt court. The same goes for children, who are jailed for petty crimes, such as theft. There are approximately 500 children in Cambodian prisons.
”The legal aid the children received from LAC was undoubtedly very important. Usually they have no one to speak for them, and without a lawyer, it’s very likely that the children will stay in prison, even though many children are innocent with the crimes, they are accused of. “ Pernille explains.
Cambodias’ prisons are no place to grow up. The inmates live by he dozens in small, dirty cells, they are malnutritioned due to small, poor foodrations, they have little or no access to medical help and schooling. Furthermore, the kids are put in the same prisons as grown-ups, which puts them at risk of molestation and abuse.
During the campaign, DanChurhcAId partner LICADHO established a partnership with the prison authorities, and were allowed to hand out medication and do activities with the children inside the prisons.
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”The children in prison lead a dull life, sitting around all day without schooling or activities. We did some workshops with dancing and drawing lessons, and they were very popular with the kids. We hope we can continue doing this.” Explains Borine, coordinator on the child rights project from LICADHO.
The drawing workshops were conducted by students from the royal institute of art, and ended up as an exhibition. Read more on the drawings of children in prison
Work on Child rights is a lengthy process
The campaign for childrens rights has succeeded in creating a better understanding in the judicial and penitary system for the special needs and rights of children.
But even though the campaign brought some successes, improving the rights of children in Cambodia is a lenghty process, Pernille explains.
”How can you expect people to understand big words as ”Childrens Rights”, when there is no general respect for human rights in Cambodia?” she says.