Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
contains another dozen rooms, each housing three or four women, linked by a stairwell
with bare concrete walls. Sreyvy's hours at work are long and tedious, especially when
garment orders are due and the Chinese managers press seamstresses to take on overtime
shifts. But she needs the money to help support her six-year-old daughter, who lives back
in her home village. Due to high transport costs, she only travels home once or twice a
year, at the Khmer New Year and during Pchum Ben, the annual festival when Cambodi-
ans light incense and pray to their ancestors. This month she sent just $10 to her family.
In a neighboring room, 27-year-old Choeun Ran explained that so many youngsters
from her village in Kampong Thom have gone to the city in search of work that few re-
main. “When we have a celebration, no young people are there. Mostly they are very old,
and they look after their grandchildren,” she said. Garment work offers little escape from
the cycles of poverty. Despite a recent hike in the minimum wage to $100 per month, uni-
ons and labor advocates argue that wages remain below the cost of living. Small hikes in
garment wages are often matched by an immediate increase in rent by landlords.
After eight years in the capital, Ran said she can only earn enough money to pay her
living costs and send small amounts home, and there's very little left over to do what she
really wants, which is to start a business or buy some land back in her village. Women can
earn more money by working as “beer girls” at restaurants or bar girls in Phnom Penh's
red-light districts—but these industries carry great social stigma and leave young women
vulnerable to sexual abuse or exploitation. “It's very difficult to save money to go back
home or go somewhere else,” Ran said. “The salary is very small, and the money goes
with eating.”
There are few ladders out of poverty under Hunsenomics. Education, the most obvious
route upward, is as infected with corruption as everything else. In a system so starved of
funds that classes are often run without textbooks or stationery, the one consistent lesson
that all Cambodian children learn is that everything—even good grades—has a price. At
12 years of age, Sor Sopheavy is already well versed in the art of the underhand payment.
Each day she comes to school with 1,500 riels (about $0.37) for her teacher, which al-
lows her to attend a private class he holds each afternoon after school. “If we come to
extra classes we will get the questions and answers for the exams,” she said, slinging her
satchel over her shoulder. “I'm not happy with this. I know the teacher probably paid 100
riels to print the answer sheet and they make us pay 1,500.”
It's a common story at the Hun Sen Bun Rany Wat Phnom High School in the center
of Phnom Penh. Even here, at a “Hun Sen school” where the prime minister personally
come by accepting per diem “tips” in return for additional private tuition and extra cred-
its on exams. “If we make a mistake the teacher will give us extra points,” said Chuon
