A Change of Guard

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Tuesday 17 March 2015

Shocking images show horror of child labour at toxic Cambodia rubbish site... and the tourists who visit to photograph them


Lia Neang Syer is 14 years old. She has worked at the dump for four years and had to give up her studies because she had no money to pay for books and extra lessons. She has two sisters and one younger brother. Their mother also works at the garbage dump. She does not like the job but she is forced because her family need the money to live
Sigen Rathy is 12 years old. She has worked at the site for a year and has seen many tour groups passing through the landfill site to photograph what they see
A truckload of waste, organic and inorganic, some toxic, reaches the dump of Anlong Pi, just outside Siem Reap
A group of tourists watch Sueun Chany, 12, carrying large bags of trash across the dump for sorting. The landfill is located a few kilometers from Siem Reap, the most famous tourist destination in Cambodia
A Japanese tourist covers her mouth with her hands due to the strong smell caused by the mountains of toxic waste and decaying food

Anlong Pi is situated just 18 miles form the popular tourist town of Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat temple
Around 200 people work at the toxic landfill site, including more than 50 children
Photographer David Rengel travelled to Cambodia to photograph child labour conditions across the country
The Spanish photographer was horrified to find tourists visiting the sump to take pictures of workers 


By SARAH GORDON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:45, 16 March 2015 | UPDATED: 12:41, 16 March 2015


It is one of Cambodia's most popular tourist cities, where visitors flock to visit the nearby ruined temples of the Angkor region.

But while foreign visitors stay in luxury hotels and splash out of escorted trips to discover the delights of 12th-century temple Angkor Wat, families work in a rubbish dump just 18.6 miles away for a meager £1 a day.

And now the rubbish site itself has piqued the curiosity of tourists, who have added a morbid visit of the site to their tour itineraries, so they can snap photos with the children working to sort the rubbish.


The desperate photos showing the hard life of adults and children living and working at the site were taken by Spanish filmmaker David Rengel, who visited the area to document child labour conditions in the country.



But the director was further shocked when he saw groups of tourists visiting the rubbish site to see the locals at work, take photos of the children and hand out sweets.

Anlong Pi is a huge wasteland, just outside the popular tourist hub of Siem Reap. Workers are the extensive rubbish dump breathe toxic fumes on a daily basis as they work and live at the site.

In recent years, the huge increase in Siem Reap's population - in part to deal with the influx of tourists - has caused an exponential increase in the amount of rubbish taken to the dump site - causing even worse conditions for workers.

Local organisations have also noticed an increase in the number of tourists visiting to site out of curiosity, to photograph the poverty-stricken locals working to sort the rubbish.

Rengel explained: 'I went to Siem Reap, where my colleague and friend Omar Havana, a freelance photographer for Getty images, had been developing a project over various years. He gave me the contacts I needed to enter the site.

'While I was taking photos to demonstrate the realities of child labour, I realised tourists were arriving to visit, sometimes in buses and other times in tuk-tuks, Cambodian taxis, I thought it was horrible, and it should be reported.

'In that moment, I changed my point of view and instead decided to report on the practice of tourism as one of the causes of slave labour, including child labour.'

While spending time talking to the 200 or so people living at the site, more of 50 of whom are children, Rengel realised the rubbish dump was being offered as an alternative kind of tour to the usual temple visits.

He told MailOnline Travel: 'What disgusted me, what I didn't understand and what I don't think is understandable is why these tourist visit places where children work, or visit orphanages where children have lost their parents.
'It seems awful to me that tourists and people with money take part in this, from their position of privilege, show such contempt towards the inhabitants of the countries they visit and towards their human rights.

'What is the most contemptuous, what we shouldn't allow under any circumstances, is that they use children like a some kind of entertainment, violating all their human rights in the process.'

Of the 200 or so who work at the site, there are some families that also live there, building houses just beyond the dump and the toxic fumes of the site.

Rengel explained: 'The houses and hammocks you see in teh pictures are areas that have been constructed so the workers can rest during their long days at the site.

'They earn their money separating paper, metal, plastic and all recyclable materials then having them weighed and sold to the company that controls the rubbish dump.'

He added: 'I spoke to the locals about whether tourist visits were a rare occurrence. They told me that every day tourists arrive. Hotels and tourists guides are offering trips as something exotic and different to the usual temple visits. Nobody has banned these visits and the rubbish dump also charges visitors an entry fee.'

Dubbing the practice 'dirty tourism', Rengel explains in the promotional materials for his work: 'Around the world, the popularity of the routes of poverty, including orphanages, slums or landfills is growing. 

'These types of tours use children and their families for the economic benefit of the organizers, leading to greater exploitation and denigrate children as mere leisure objects.'



8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Begin of Drgunzet's comment.

See? Mr. Hun Sen wants to keep the minimum wage low so that the foreign investors will bring more jobs into Cambodia. Then those poors will work in the garment factories instead at the garbage sites.

But CNRP incited the mass protest so that they can demand power from CPP. As the result, Cambodian garment industry has lost 50,000 to 100,000 potential jobs in 2014. Total potential revenue was lost between 500 million US dollars to 1 billion due to protest, fights, violence, fires, factory destruction and disruption.

Cambodia garment industry was growing rapidly since Vietnam shifted toward high-tech. But in 2014, a lot of garment order were shifted from Cambodia to Vietnam. Suddenly Vietnam's big establish Garment industry picked up steam and grew much faster.

I bet Sam Rainy and Kem Sokha will never want to visit the dump site.

-Drgunzet-

Anonymous said...

Well said; Drgunzet. Unfortunately though, the writer of this blog is a pro-Sam Rainsy party. The whole rubbish picture out there was suppose to make the Hunsen government look bad and that he is incapable of looking after the people under his administration. But I guess I can't really say that can I, since the administrator of this blog would remove my comments. Anyway, I wouldn't give a crap about that. As a Cambodian, I am entitled to make that criticism of my very own kind.

Anonymous said...

Switzerland has the most higher pay of minimum wage in the world, currently at $23/hr.

Is the country doing poorly?
Guess,not.
The country allow people to who work hard earn more but also doing good job for redistribution of wealth.

Anonymous said...

You asshole drgunzet you have no human decency and you like to see human misery . I dare you to criticize The US first lady Michell Obama who will visit Cambodia when she raises the human
rights violations and that makes Ah hun sen and his bitch wife grin like sheep. The first lady is happy to take criticism as long as it is constructive criticism. Unlike Ah hun sen only wants to silence his dissents
We khmer want to live in democracy and we will struggle for it no matter what.
Unlike you asshole youn wants to live in under commy dictator. Tell me this . can you criticize the youn Govt ? Let me tell you this drgunzet, you will go to jail. You are the lowest peice of shit on this earth and with out you the world will be a better place.
Jackel

Anonymous said...

To you Jackel:
If you want to become the hero of the poor Khmers in the above pictures; rather than blaming the government or Youn, why don't you take you hands out of your ass and hand them all your belongings? Why sit and shift the blame on someone else and expect them to solve the problems?

May I ask you, what position it is you are holding in the society? Are you a company director? Do you own restaurant chains in the US? Or do you manufacture goods and services for your own company? Do you use your financial influence to sponsor your own people to be educated in US, Canada, Australia, Japan etc... Or are you one who opens up his mouth only expecting some body else to solve the problems. "to change the world outside, you have to start first from the world within". If you only open up your mouth and do nothing, you are nothing more than an empty drum that makes all the loud noises without any substance inside.



Anonymous said...

Begin of Drgunzet's comment.

I was raised by the German American elites. They taught me a concept: THE BEST WAY TO SAVE MONEY IS NOT TO SPEND.

But apparently, the Khmer folks have a mentality of: THE BEST WAY TO SAVE MONEY IS TO GET THINGS, DO THINGS FOR FREE.

Am I right?

The German Americans also taught me: GIVE AND RECEIVE, NEVER TAKE.

As we know, the Khmer folks seem to love to take, rape, rob and kill.

Am I right?

I bowed my head low to the German Americans and learned from them. I was very inferior when I came from Asia. They made me a new person, granted me with German honor and superiority.

Perhaps you folks can go to this forum and ask the Germans to check out my German honor and superiority.

http://www.topix.com/forum/world/germany

Meanwhile, I don't see how Khmer race would survive in the future. Other races will slowly squeeze the Khmer race out.

-Drgunzet-

Anonymous said...

I think the German race and their superiority complex, has committed some of the worst atrocities in the world. Men like Hitler, Himmler,Heydrich, Brunner, Barbie were responsible for some of the worst crimes in human history.

I guess there are no differences between the violence committed by these individuals compared to that of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

If one is to admire these people so as to make himself feel superior than the rest, then I would rather prefer to be an inferior race instead of becoming butchers.

Actually; the concept of GIVE and Receive was not German American, it was a Jewish man name Jesus. Had he lived during the Nazi period, there is no doubt that he would be sent to concentration camp in Auschwitz and gassed for being a Jew.

Anonymous said...

Eh drgunzet you were raised by American and German elites but you sound so stupid racist man!I must have got to your raw nerve and rage. The evident is clear you repeatedly posted comments which means that you must have felt with rage. Well asshole thank you for your attention.
Jackel