International Children's Day

Today is International Children's Day - "a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children" - which is wonderful. But perhaps it is more useful to think about children's rights and promoting adherence to child related conventions.

Six of the eight Millennium Development Goals relate directly to children. Children are living in poverty, embroiled in armed conflict, trafficked as slaves and sex workers, working in the worst conditions, living in shantytowns, addicted to drugs by the age of four, deprived of education, health, orphaned by AIDS and other diseases including those with treatment and a host of other situations that global civil society must work on and ameliorate for all the children in the world. As trite as it sounds - they are the future.

In Cambodia, children sell flowers, shoeshines, jasmine and newspapers on the streets. The expats do not buy from them because there is always a man on a motorbike to take the money and whisk them to the next restaurant, bar etc. It is very hard to say no but the rule is never buy from or give to children. ChildSafe Cambodia is an organisation that protects children and has a network of service people to watch for abuse. Their advice is clear

Do not buy anything from children on the streets:
- Many tourists and expatriates feel pity for the children selling various products. By buying products/services from children, you support a business that puts children at high risk; children are out at night until late and are working in hazardous places
- Most of the children are forced into work and racketed for the money they earn. All have an adult waiting for them outside and could do the job themselves without involving children
- By providing them with an income, it hinders organizations that work with these families to encourage alternative and safe sources of income.
- Children might say that they work to pay for their studies: surveys show that this is something to say to make a sale.
- What to do: Refrain from buying with a smile. If you want to help, support the Cambodian social workers that work with these children
- Giving them food has the same results as it maintains children on the streets

So we comply and refuse to buy and it must seem so unfair. The rich barang (foreigners) are eating, drinking and enjoying life in Cambodia and they won't spare 1000 riel ($0.25).

There is a lovely flower girl who works Riverside at night that a couple of my friends took to the waterpark and the zoo. She sells roses to people in bars but she is approaching an age that will make her vulnerable to prostitution and rape. It is heart-breaking but there's nothing we can do except support the child protection agencies. I recommend Rithy Panh's film Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers for more information.

I have blogged before on the six year old boy I met who was in rehab for drugs and on Seila a victim of child trafficking. I found this press release from Legal Aid of Cambodia on pre-trial detention for children.

June 1 is International Children’s Day. On that day many accused children are awaiting their trials at the CC2 Prison in Phnom Penh and other prisons throughout the country. Most of them are being held in beyond the legal limits of pre-trial detention and they often wonder who is responsible for their excessive pretrial detention.

The juveniles are between 13 to 18 years old on the date of the accused crime. Nearly all of their clients are held in pre-trial detention in various provincial prisons and CC2 Prison. The excessive pre-trial detention period regarding these cases, range from 15 days up to 70 days or more. This can be considered as a broad violation of children's rights and leads to the situation that these juveniles are being deprived of receiving education, living with their families and enjoying social events even before it has been decided whether they are guilty or not. (Press release from Legal Aid of Cambodia)

Think about it this way, a child innocent of a crime gets locked away for maybe 70 days, over two months. Although it doesn't really matter whether the child is guilty of the crime or not. It is a violation of children's rights, a violation on the Convention on the Rights of the Child of which Cambodia is a signatory.

There is also the fact that child can be charged as adults here depending on the severity of the alleged crime or the status of the victim. There was a story not long ago of a teenager who cursed down the phone to the wife of a CPP official. He thought he was speaking to someone else. He is now in jail, waiting to be tried as an adult. He is in jail due to a mis-dialed number and very bad luck. (I will try to find the newspaper article and provide sources.)

They are just some of the stories from Cambodia. There are other stories, happier stories. There are children who get a great education and play without a care in the world. There are children who get English lessons and play football and meet foreign children. All childhoods are represented.