As far as I can tell, Cambodia’s Stung Meanchey Dump was closed in July 2009. No children are living on it. Officially.
Good thing. Stung Meanchey Dump was also called Smokey Mountain. The 30 metre high piles of rubbish were constantly alight. The mountain was a fuming, burning mountain. The smell was putrid, a toxic blend of human excrement, sulphur and rotting flesh. Plastic objects were always burning and the smoke was thick. Scattered through the rubbish were used needles (many dumped by local hospitals). The needles were contaminated with all sorts of horrid diseases. Remember, the kids only wore thin thongs, if they wore shoes at all. (Syringes are a great find, though! The plastic inside them can be sold for a cent.) Stung Meanchey dump was used by hospitals and was the dumping ground for body parts and aborted foetuses.
Huge trucks would thunder through the dump, adding to the huge piles of rubbish. People living and working in the dump would rush to the trucks, desperate to search the new piles for anything that might be sold. Children would fight for access to the rubbish, hoping to find something they could sell. Scott Neeson (Cambodia Children’s Fund) has reported how each year; children would be run over and killed by the trucks. Their bodies would be left to rot amongst the other rubbish.
Unwashed children provide a feast for the millions of flies.
So, when the dump closed, what happened to the people living on it? What happened to the children struggling to make a dollar a day by scavenging anything they could sell?
They moved.
Choeung Ek Dump, just outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia is their new home. Choeung Ek Dump is Stung Meanchey Dump, just by another name. But this one’s “better”. Officials promised to bury the waste every second day and promised that no scavengers would live at the dump. They assumed the dump scavengers would join the countless street scavengers living in Phnom Penh. The new dump is closed to the public. Closed? Maybe… “hidden” is a better word.
The kids are still there…
There’s a report of one girl, paid a dollar a day by a westerner. She was asked to collect glass for him. He needed glass to stick into the top of his home walls, to keep everyone out. Instead of using his Western influence and power for good, he encourages the scavenging, abusing the needs of the dump kids.
Other foreigners living in Cambodia tell sad stories and break the hearts of well-meaning tourists. The tourists hand over money. But, the money never gets to the children. These foreigners have found an easy way to make some cash.
Then, there’s the worst men... the ones who takes the young children away from the dump.
...And put them into the sex trade.
Or use them for themselves.
In July 2010, David Fletcher was caught after fleeing to Thailand. He had been running an unofficial charity, providing food for children at Stung Meanchey Dump (the dump with no children “officially” living there). His charitable actions were a blanket to hide his inappropriate treatment of the young girls.
It’s heartbreaking.
Anyone want to go for a picnic lunch? I’m thinking of taking some food and sitting in the middle of my local dump. Any takers?
Phnom Phen’s Children’s Charities:
http://www.charity-charities.org/Children/Cambodia_3.html
This site lists many charities working to improve the lives of children living in Cambodia, especially Phnom Penh.
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