Flew in late because I very cleverly got to the airport without my passport the first time round. It worked out, as I extended my trip an extra two days during the work week and could see more people.

I arrived late on Friday, talked for a while with Lyna and then caught a bit of sleep before heading out with the beach trip.

The beach trip! Lots of photographs up here, and a detailed report. To sum up - from 5AM to 9PM, over eighty people tripped to the beach in Kompong Som and back. It rained but no-one else seemed to notice, and not the kids who thought the sea was the best thing ever. Great to see sixteen sets of parents turn up and spend time with their kids.

Children love their families

One thing that struck me on this trip was the complexity of the children’s feelings to their parents. It’s so easy from outside to say a beaten and malnourished child would be glad to be away in a kind and supportive place. But I saw kids from bad situations so upset over having to stay an extra night. There are two sad kids who are flourishing in weekly boarding, physically and emotionally, and it’s taken over three months for them to be able to talk about their parents calmly.

It drove home how important parents are to children, and how necessary parental support is for trafficking. The two girls who are being ‘groomed’ for trafficking now - it’s completely dependent on their parents.

The two trafficked girls

After the beach trip, the next day was meetings after meetings. Got the trust documents signed first and then met with someone from a trafficking rescue group, similar to IJM. They had checked out the coffeeshop and this was someone I had worked with on another trafficking case (which makes it sound like I did a lot! I just filed reports and follow-ups).

I was pretty confused over whether the two girls from Riverkids had been trafficked. I had heard three versions, including the parents saying the two girls were disobedient runaways. Considering these were (are!) our sweetest and most well-behaved students, I’m not buying that, especially with the on-going family contact.

But he explained the way traffickers were coaxing girls into trafficking now. Thanks to a lot of hard work in Cambodia, the locked-up brothels are mostly gone or underground. Instead, the traffickers get the kids to cooperate. Part of this is the usual loan to the parents that the brothel owner makes, which shackles the girl with debt. Then there’s the ‘grooming’. I would find this unbelievable if I didn’t personally know several Cambodian girls who have been - there just really isn’t a better word than corrupted. These are underage disadvantaged kids who are being seduced through drinks, drugs and a nightclub lifestyle where, compared to the few hard ‘real’ jobs available, money comes fast and easy.

The coffeeshop where they’re working is in a high-risk area, right next to one that’s been busted and a notorious hotel. The owner’s being caught in several lies already and it’s just - incredibly frustrating. The girls won’t leave without their parents’ consent, and we can’t force them to go until they’ve gone into full work, and that’s unlikely to work. Shelter recidivism is really high without family support.

So we’re at a standstill. The girls won’t leave, but their families know we’re watching them.

One tough thing we did was to sit down and go through everything the staff did about the girls, making a timeline and asking what we didn’t do. I think we did maybe 80-90% of what we could have done - we should have moved faster initially and maybe explored the financial angle deeper, but overall we did okay. I’ll be posting a full report on that shortly.

Good stuff!

One of my favourite little kids, one who doesn’t have living family able or willing to care for him, has found a really good long-term fostering situation.

Outside of Riverkids, I visited a birthfamily for a friend and that was just such a highlight! The family are working-class but the love and care to their kids, biological and fostered, shone through.

Right at the end, I tagged along with a friend to enroll her kid at a new school set up a church. They had three spaces left and we managed to get our three smartest - and best-behaved - kids in Grade 2 and Grade 3. The school has a much better teacher-student ratio, actual educational materials and a full afternoon immersion program for english. We had to get the parents’ permission as it’s a christian school, although I made sure that they would not be pressured to convert. It’s comparatively pricey at $15 a month, plus $8 for lunch.

The three kids came back the afternoon before I left full of chatter and complaints. I laughed and laughed once it was translated for me. The school was fine, the teachers are nice, but the lunch food, they said, was terrible! and such small portions! Totally spoilt by Riverkids’ fantastic cook. Solved by packing lunches for them.

I played the Zombie game before I left which involves chasing many children around a house going “arr, arr” and catching them until you have three kids left running from an army of stiff-legged Zombies. Fabulous.

One of the best things about these trips is that I come back with a huge list of ideas. We’re exploring setting up microcredit bank accounts for each child, giving them small rewards for school attendance, performance or extra work.

The school uniforms and bags were given out - controlled chaos! The kids are much better behaved than last year, and only one girl bursting into tears. School was meant to start on Monday, but the school still hadn’t finished assigning classes, so only some of our kids were actually attending by Wednesday.

Bad stuff

A family came to ask about bringing in their two little boys. Dirt poor and definitely in need but we had to turn them down. The two boys are not at particular risk for trafficking. Their older sister in the provinces is definitely high risk but the family reuses to enroll her because they need her to look after their grandfather. Culturally and morally, the family has to care for the grandfather above the grandchildren, plus economically they’re tied to the province where the girl’s staying. All we can do now is keep in contact and hope they will change their minds.

”Oh man. Sophon has gone down to explain to the khmer mother why we can’t take the boys without their sister. I hate this. I hate having to say no to children when I know they’re not going to get many or any other choices. But we have such limited resources and if I take these two in, I won’t have space for two kids who are at risk for trafficking and - oh it just sucks. He’s asking them to talk to their relatives in the province about helping the grandfather so the girl can come to school.” - from a post during the trip.

Rumours around that the whole river community will be relocated. They’re going to push the boats off, there’s a possible new tax on foreigners - it’s all rumours now, but worrying. The last relocation was horrible. We can do very little except advise our families to seek out a human rights’ ngo for help, and offer shelter and support for their kids during the crisis.

One of the little girls who has been with us since near the start is withdrawn and sad, after the long weekend. She sat on my lap and wouldn’t talk, just sat and drew and shook her head when asked questions. It’s pretty rotten seeing how miserable she is when she comes back and how much she doesn’t want to go home.

Running an actual organisation!

We had a several long meetings going through all the October issues - dentist, immunisation, teachers - whew.

I took all the staff out to eat and in true Singaporean style, picked a restaurant highly recommended for its food. I ate until I was stuffed with chinese dumplings, but learnt a valuable cross-cultural lesson. In Cambodia, ambiance is everything! So the next staff meal will be at a hotel buffet, swanky but cheap. They were very nice about it, amid much discussion about why Singaporeans are so odd about food.

I thought my bag had been picked at one point with $800 in staff salaries stolen. Turned out that I had put the money in a different secret pocket, and it was at most $100 taken. But oh, the cold panic!

And one big debate: should we or should we not get a TV for the kids? I was outvoted but they did agree that the TV would have to be kept as a big reward and strictly monitored. Can’t afford one this month, but we’ll see, especially if we can get one under $200.

Fair trade and friends

Visited our friend Diana Saw who has moved to Phnom Penh to open a fair trade workshop. The last trip, she had two sewing machines and plans. This time her house was buzzing with pretty bags in stacks and the quiet chatter of busy people. Over lunch we discussed a Riverkids fundraising project, and Diana was able to suggest alternative ideas for some of our problems. It’s incredibly neat to have someone on-the-scene who’s as calm and collected as Diana.

I stayed at a friend’s house for most of the trip. She’s an adoptive mum and it was great to be able to talk without having to explain the background issues. Plus her kids are just such fun.

Babies and little kids

Went by the orphanage where the trafficked baby is. She’s grown so big and healthy! She'll grow up there, and I'll be her sort of godmother when she's older for school and so forth, but she can't be adopted because of the trafficking charge. But oh, she's beautiful. She was a wee skinny little thing with elfin features but in seven months of care, she's turned into a roly-poly grinning baby. Properly attached to the woman who cares for her, adored by the other kids and cheerful. She has some minor health issues only.

One of our newest is about four. She went to the dentist today and was hanging about, so I gave her paper and pen to scribble with. Smart cookie, great hand-eye co-ordnation and so on. But also just - she was all imperious “on your lap! more paper!” then cracking up giggling.

Stopped by on my way to the airport early the next morning as the kids were getting ready for school. I try pretty hard not to have favourites or attachments - I'm of more use if I advocate for all of them and the community. Individually, I pretty much want to wrap each kid up and get them the very best possible. But we have to be pragmatic. Still. There's one little girl, and she was so upset that I was leaving that I broke my own rule and gave her a huge hug and told her that she was going to be okay and I'd be back soon.