Spain's El Pais notes DB Poipet's role in
fighting child exploitation
MADRID: 30th September 2006 -- Spain's
widest-circulation Daily, El Pais, ran an article on 9th
September on the situation in Cambodia relating to the exploitation of
children. Columnist Lola Huetes Machado analyses the problems which
involve children in a range of exploitative activities by adults, often
close relatives or friends and also tourists. She included in her
process of consultation and research the Don Bosco Shelter for
trafficked and street children in Poipet.
According to the El Pais report, there are
some 4 million women and 2 million children worldwide caught up in a
network of trafficking, and Cambodia is one of the most vulnerable
locations in that phenomenon. Quoting a Salesian who shares
responsibility for the Poipet DB Shelter, the article says that "mafias
look for children in the villages, promise money to parents (that never
comes), and the children are lost forever". A number of children
from the Shelter were interviewed by El Pais. The
interviews hint at the situation, the veritable 'slavery' faced by so
many children: "I used to ask for money in Bangkok with my mother, and
sometimes we worked on construction sites but she died", said a
7-year-old girl at the Centre. A 15-year-old boy relates that "The
police arrested me in Bangkok. I was in prison with many adults. I used
to sell sweets that my owner gave me". Another boy, 14, says that
"We worked with some men. I didn't know my parents. I used to sell
flowers in Bangkok. If I did not bring money they put me in a tank of
water. A woman called the police. They knew I was Cambodian and
brought me here".
Cambodia has become a paradise for the wrong kind of
tourism, notes El Pais, a reputation that the Government,
international organisations and local communities try to fight. Don
Bosco Poipet is one of them but not alone. It networks with many
of the other organisations fighting Cambodia's most serious evil.
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