BRUNEI DARUSSALAM Middle East and North Africa No report available on CRIN. BULGARIA

CAMBODIA

NGO Committee on the Rights of the Child

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- The family is poor and the children have to earn income to support the family and do

household work.

- Some parents think that education is useless.

- Prevalent gambling around school grounds and glue sniffing (Poi Pet has the worst problems in the country in this regard) are additional reasons.

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vulnerable and suffer various forms of abuse and exploitation in the society. Their rights are

easily violated. Nowadays, we notice that children suffer from abuses such as economic

exploitation, sexual exploitation, trafficking and drug abuse. There are also a number of children in conflict with the law. These serious problems require high consideration, urgent action and provision of special protection from the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC).

According to the results of a survey and interviews of 324 children conducted by the NGOCRC and Children's Committee with children in especially difficult circumstances, children in urban areas, children in suburban areas and children in rural areas, the following forms of exploitation were identified:

· Children were forced to work too hard

· Children are sold into prostitution

· Physical and sexual abuse occur through kidnapping or trafficking to other countries.

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The problem of children in conflict with the law is becoming serious in Cambodian society.

homelessness, and lack of schooling. Children become vagabonds and they commit serious

misconduct such as robberies, rapes, kidnappings and other criminal activities. Some offences are committed due to the intimidation of the 'Big Brother' gangs. There are some specific provisions in the Law on Criminal Procedures and the UNTAC Criminal Law with respect to child offenders, but this is not enough to fully comply with the CRC. Cambodia has no juvenile justice system and there is no alternative placement for incarcerating children separately from adults, except for one Youth Rehabilitation Centre (YRC) in Phnom Penh. According to prison statistics from LICADHO, the number of children detained in adult prisons rose from 45 in January 1998 to 163 children by August 1999, of whom only 62 (38%) had been sentenced. During the same period the number of children detained at the YRC rose from 45 (none sentenced) to 48, with one having been sentenced. This gives a total of 211 children in detention by August 1999, of whom 63 (30%) were sentenced by a court. Some were sentenced without any proper accusation from the court and without having recourse to legal representation. In addition many children are detained in police stations without clear incriminating evidence, and often beaten until they confess.

The RGC opened the youth rehabilitation centre in 1995 in order to rehabilitate children in

conflict with the law. It was set up by a sub-decree, with the aim of detaining "children from 7 to 17 years of age who have committed themselves to perversity, thievery and robbery throughout the country". The proposal to detain children under 13 is actually in conflict with other Cambodian laws on minimum age of imprisonment, but in practice most children detained are aged from 13 to 18 and some are over 18.

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prostitutes and domestic workers come from rural families who are lured by money or by the

tricks of traffickers who promise honest and well paid jobs.

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national borders. Over the past few years there has been an increasing movement of women and children into prostitution across the border, which involves corrupt officials and paying of bribes. Alongside domestic prostitution within Cambodia, trafficking of Cambodian women and children to Thailand is also seemingly occurring , which usually involves prostitutes brought to Poi Pet inBanteay Meanchey province and Koh Kong province. At the main border checkpoint, they spent only 10 Baht ($0.25) which allows them to cross the border for 24 hours. Some traffickers pretend they are accompanying these women or girls on a day trip to Thailand but have nointention to return within a day. The girls sold to Thailand are mostly very young, under 13 years old. In Thailand, they can be sold to a customer for 20,000 Baht ($500) for one week and some girls are brought to other countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, etc. According to Trafficking of Cambodia Women and Children to Thailand 1998 (IOM). Children are also trafficked in Thailand for begging. This traffic is substantial, with around 100 to 150 children being returned to Poipet every week, according to figures from the Immigration Detention Centre in Bangkok.

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At present, child labour is considered as a form of economic exploitation in Cambodia. However, articles 172 to 181 of the Cambodian Labour Law provide for working conditions and categories of work that children can do which are not harmful to their development.

Despite the adoption of the Labour Law in 1997, children have been observed doing almost every kind of job that adults do, except for those requiring education or professional skills. This is because children can be easily abused and exploited by employers. For example some children are not aware of how much they earn because wages are paid directly to their parents or legal guardians. Moreover, the abour Code does not apply to the informal labour sectors such as children working on the farms of their parents, child domestic workers etc.

According to VCAO's survey, about 4000 children under 18 work as house servants in Phnom Penh city. These children are not allowed access to education and they work a full day without any time off. However they earn only 30,000 to 40,000 (about US$10) a month. Indeed some work as servants just for food and lodgings without salary. According to ILO/IPEC's report Child labor in Cambodia: An Overview 1998 9.2 per cent of Cambodian children between the ages of 5 and 14 are "economically active". 86% of them are

working to supplement their family income or to help pay their parents' debts. The agricultural

sector accounts for almost nine out of 10 of the child workers aged 5 to 14 years in Cambodia as a whole ( 88.6%), constituting 73.3% for urban areas and 89.8% for rural areas. A high percentage of working children (32 %) had to drop out of school or training programmes in order to assist households or to work for pay. According to the AAFLI and report on "Child Labour in Cambodia" of September 1996, they found children working in 30 out of 60 factories surveyed. Interviews with 55 of these children show that most of them were employed for loading bricks onto carts, wheeling carts outside and unloading the bricks onto trucks. A few children operated heavy machines as well. Many children reported frequent injuries because of their lack of protective equipment or insufficient training. This is especially true of brick factories where there are numerous cases of children suffering severe injuries such as loss of limbs through operating brick making machines. Some children reported that because their earnings were not enough to help support their families, they

end up borrowing money from their employers which in turn causes them to remain in debt to

their employers. At present, there is a type of work which badly affects the Khmer culture and tradition, and especially tarnishes the Khmer women's dignity. Cambodian girls are employed as beer or cigarette promotion girls or in other forms of promotional activities such as working in karaoke clubs, nightclubs and restaurants. These types of jobs require young attractive girls to lure customers. They affect the dignity of Khmer women as well as the future of those children.