SECURITY ISSUES WITH CAMBODIAN ORPHANAGES

Mother Teresa once said, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread”. So in a place where the hunger for bread is so profound, the hunger for love will always be even more longed for? In a Cambodian orphanage, a place where children who experience malnutrition and are deprived of their basic needs, the concept of love being longed for over food can almost seem irrational. Unfortunately, that is not the only naive misconception held by the majority of the western world.

As the doors of their money making tourist attraction open, children run toward you with an out of context smile and a well rehearsed greeting. Strangers stroll in and out without being questioned, without their identity being checked and the idea of staff asking for your appointment is simply absurd. Beds are piled onto one another and children are overcrowded in their rooms. Corruption takes the food out of the hands of children leaving them with nothing but malnutrition, morbidity and under development. Yet, it is the silence of an orphanage that tends to make the hairs stand up on the back of one's neck.

Orphanages are notoriously understaffed which leads many of us to assume an environment full of children crying out for the things we would; love, affection and attachment. But the reality is far from the common assumption. The hope fades. They know if they cry out, no one will come to comfort them. The attachment they had with family breaks and typically never re-builds while in the orphanage. Children know if they cry from their cribs, no one will come for them so the crying stops, the silence builds and the hunger for love grows.

In a collectivities country such as Cambodia with some of the highest rates of children in orphanages in Asia,    something doesn't quite add up. Collectivist countries are known for  interconnectedness within their communities. Families do not have individual problems and when children become orphans, extended families are known to help and take children in. So why are the rates of orphans so high? A high prevalence of children in Cambodian orphanages are not actual orphans. Majority have, if not both, one parent alive and extended family well. These high rates of ‘orphans’ is due to child exploitation and orphanage trafficking. This often looks like active recruitment of children from low socioeconomic provinces. Recruitment often involves coercing and bribing parents that placing their children in institutions is the best course of action and what is often described as a short term method, often extends long term. Messages are portrayed to families that the orphanages will provide a better life for their children; a life with higher education, with less poverty and less social exclusion. This corruption is far from the truth. Once children have been trafficked to orphanages, ties from family are typically broken and attachment bonds cease. Parents face a reality shift … They have lost their children. They have lost their children to a life of psychological neglect, child labor, bullying, sexual abuse and in many cases an overall prevalence of orphanage trafficking. These slave-like circumstances are not what parents would expect to be the better life promised for their children.

The standard of child protection policies within Cambodian orphanages can be described as simply non existent. The Government's minimum standards do not include social protection services and as a consequence, and conveniently, there has been no extensive insight / research on the levels of sly abuse occurring in Cambodias orphanages. Where is the country's accountability for these human rights violations against innocent children? The Australia Cambodia Foundation (ACF) provides support to Cambodian children, particularly those with special needs. However, the ACF have stated that there is no direct and concrete evidence of the recruitment of children into orphanages for the sole purpose of exploitation. Is that the truth or is that corruption shining through? Orphanages will not highlight themselves as being involved in child exploitation so should we just take their word for it or should there be greater investigation into the issue? Representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) have also highlighted the Australian Government's concerns for the safety and security of the orphanage trafficking trend that continues to grow. How can we let this issue grow? Why do more people not know about this?

If we stop and reflect on how and why this is an issue, the issue is being fuelled by Australians themselves. We are letting orphanage trafficking grow into the tragedy that it is. The fuel to continue many orphanages is run off donations and voluntourism. The orphanages that appear the ‘worse’ get them the most money. That means, children need to be deprived of their basic needs such as adequate sleeping arrangements, hygiene and food / water. The orphanages that appear to have the least resources attract the most attention, yet the outstanding level of corruption means no amount of money will improve the lives of the children. Your money does not go to the children. As the orphanages gain more money, the children get less; less food, less adequate sleeping arrangements and less emotional wellbeing. They attract attention from the travel sector, education sector, philanthropic sector and the private sector. People add a stop at the orphanage to see the children on their holiday, they send thousands and sometimes millions from their businesses, they do private aid exchanges and spend time helping or teaching English and all that they give in the end is the hunger for love and nothing more. They leave, giving more resources, more money, more power to exploiters and communicate another goodbye to the children being left behind repeatedly. The psychological harm this does has lasting effects and perpetuates the myth that the children in these orphanages need to be adopted as ‘they have no family’. Most of these children do not need adoption by the western world, they need the exploitation to end, they need the hunger for love to be satisfied and they need the cycle of corruption to be outed. But, while being deprived of the basic right to access all these essentials listed above, they are being treated like puppets with the expectation for children to perform for the tourists that come to visit them. Forced to play with their visitors, culturally perform for them, to then have visitors leave to which many children have reported an overwhelming sense of abandonment over and over again.

It's important to know the whole truth. As many Australian alike others around the world, fill the small hole within with the need to ‘do something good’, we are causing far more harm. We make a small donation, feel great about ourselves and forget within minutes. But, that donation cumulatively contributes to the ongoing cycle of abuse and trafficking of numerous children.  The more money we donate and attention we give will mean more children are being trafficked into the orphanages. The more children we see hungry for bread and love means the more money we donate and the cycle continues.  It is hard to see children in an unacceptable state that they often are in these orphanages and not act in the way we immediately think is best, opening our wallets but overall the more money that is placed in the hands of the orphanages provides the power to remove children from their families with the lie of a better life.

Let me leave you with this, our blind acts have a detrimental impact. When we act blindly and without consciousness, there are consequences that have far reaching impacts. In a crisis situation we tend to hear the words, “protect the women and children”. Well, Cambodian orphanages are in crisis and we need to protect her children, we need to act now and do our fundamental duty to protect the children. Create awareness, educate yourselves on the issue and get involved. It is time that we end the hunger for love.