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On the East, the booming economy of Vietnam is a vivid temptation to the Khmers who live in the nearby province of Svay Rieng, Cambodia. During the recent decade, many Cambodians from the Kompong Roug and Chan Trea district of Svay Rieng have been steadily trying their luck in Vietnam as beggars. The sad side of the story is most of them are children: they are “lent” to brokers for a fee. These brokers use the children to beg, and have been known to torture children who don’t earn enough. These children also have to face the daily fear of getting caught and being imprisoned. Politically, both countries are trying to solve the problem, but the task is not that easy.

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On the West, the sight of children in dirty clothes sitting on roadsides, on the flyovers, with a small cup, begging for money, appeals to the emotions of every passerby. Some drop coins in the cup and some ignore them. How many passerby realize the reason that brings these child beggars to Thailand?
The youngest was a four-year-old. His dirty condition, club foot, and twisted legs were a contrast to the wide grin on his face. The child traffickers loitering at the border kept a sharp eye on him; a handicapped child brings in more money. A few days before, compassionate and unsuspecting foreigners had been dropping coins into outstretched tin cups, confident that their donation to a scarred street child would buy food for him. Not so. The money will end up in an agent's pocket, confirming the equation that wealthy tourists plus needy child equals money.
In 2003, Thailand has airlifted 621 Cambodian beggars back to their homeland aboard C-130 Hercules transporter flights as part of a campaign to clean up Bangkok. The Cambodians, mostly women and young children who begged for spare change and sold flower garlands on Bangkok's streets, were repatriated on four flights from Bangkok's military airport.
There is a campaign urging the public to stop giving money out of pity and giving money to beggars was not a merit but a sin. A foundation survey found that disabled children were more favored by traffickers as they could earn as much as 1,000 baht a day, while a normal child earned only about 300 baht.
Held captive, the children might receive as little as US$0.25 a day in pocket money. But they may hand their agent US$20 or more every day.
Some become experienced and escape, striking out on their own. They learn how to avoid the police and may even become traffickers themselves, shuttling between Bangkok and the border, and earning money from the trade. They sleep under bridges, in parks or along highways, with other marginal dwellers. As illegals, they shift around more and may end up in the drug trade or prostitution.

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At the center of country, there are child beggars carrying around their tiny, naked siblings like rag dolls.
Cambodia is limping into recovery from a long period of civil war and many Cambodians face another serious problem for poverty-stricken Cambodia: sex tourism. The Ministry of Tourism reported that seven out of every ten children living near Angkor Wat had been propositioned by tourists for sex.
With 40% of Cambodian population living in rural areas, international trafficking gangs target poor rural families — often striking just before the harvest, when people are at their poorest. They offer families 'loans' in return for the children which then accumulate huge interest repayments, leaving the children trapped in 'debt bondage' for life.
Over a third of the victims of the prostitution racket are children aged 11 to 17. Most of them are trafficked within Cambodia. Others arrive across the border from Vietnam, Laos or China. Children as young as four have been sold into the sex industry in Cambodia.

(Text compiled from multi online sources)




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