We've Got Class

We've been able to restart preschool courses again! The littles L-O-V-E coming to the team house, the place I live, to play & learn. Here they learn some english & typical preschool stuff like letters, numbers, colors, etc. They are also given opportunity to develop social skills such as cooperation, taking turns, sharing & classroom etiquette to prepare them for public school. Pictured here are the littles who attend preschool, my special assistant (more on her in another entry) & Wee, a housemom.

If not for Love In Action-Cambodia these children would most likely spend their days in rice paddies as forced labor, begging & stealing on the streets of Phnom Penh either for themselves or an adult, or locked up in the rooms of kiddie-brothels. They are with us because their parents could not feed them but refused to sell them, because they were orphaned, or because they were abandoned.

It's quite common to see little ones sleeping in alleys, eating from trash bags & begging tourists. They often fall prey to adults in human trafficking & sex slavery & to perverted tourists. The going rate to purchase children is USD $20-100. To "rent" a child 3-8 years old generally costs $8 per day, $5 per day if you have your own room.

Even those living with their families are in danger of kidnapping & rape. There's not much to deter those perverts either. The penalty for raping a child is generally USD $100-200 "restitution" paid to the child's parents. Rapists who cannot afford the fine simply murder their victims after raping them so no charges can be brought against them. In many of the villages outside city limits parents prostitute their children to other villagers. One father bragged that his 12 year-old daughter could make upwards of $10 per week for the family.

Many parents put their children to work as early as 4 or 5 years old. Some sell books, postcards, site seeing maps, braided or beaded bracelets, or pirate DVDs in the tourist-y section of Phnom Penh. Some are trash pickers. Some beg or steal, or beg to create an opportunity to steal. I've met more than one child under 10 years old who are regularly abused (cigarette burns, black eyes, broken bones, etc.) by parents for not bringing in sufficient profit. I've also met a few children who've been kicked out of their homes because they cannot make satisfactory profit for their parents.

In our western world the option for preschool is a given even for the poorest of children, but we have to remember that "our world" is not the world.