There are so many orphanages in Cambodia that they are actually becoming unnecessary and over funded. So many people from the West donate tons of money to Cambodian orphanages and even volunteer their time there that some organizations have found ways to take advantage of this. There are kids with living parents and or relatives that are in the orphanages for no legitimate reason but the more kids they have the more money they receive. Cambodia has altered its laws on adoption making them more morally sound and legitimate, but even this has not swayed the US on lifting its ban. Only time will tell how these issues with children in Cambodia will play out.
I personally have always wanted to adopt children from Cambodia, that's why I chose to study this country. There is such an epidemic for child sex trading and I wanted to save at least one child from that fate. As many American's may know actress Angelina Jolie adopted her first child Madox from Cambodia which came with much controversy. Hopefully America will lift the ban by the time I plan o adopting children. So far it seems that Cambodian agencies and government agencies are using homeless children and even one's with potential homes to get more money from rich foreigners. What's worse is this money isn't always going towards the benefit of the children.
It is a really sad to hear the horror stories children who have been sold into slavery for sex tell. I think that it is really dispicable that people buy other people and then rape them daily. Often these children are kidnapped from their homes or from the streets and sold into slavery. Many of them become drug addicted and contract AIDS or other sexually trasmitted diseases. Sex trafficking has become an international problem espcially in plances like Thailand and Cambodia. These children have no one to look out for them and many times the police are just as corrupt as the traffickers and lend no help. Really sad.
ReplyDeleteWhat a disheartening event. I'm actually doing this as a research topic, human trafficking, and Cambodia is one of the many places with this international issue. I had no idea about the ban on adoption into the west and so I'm really interested to research that.
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