City Homeless Roundup To Intensify for Festival

The rounding up of Phnom Penh?s beggars and homeless will be intensified in the week leading up to the Water Festival, which begins Nov 1, officials and human rights workers said.

?We have been regularly collecting beggars and people from the street to get them vocational training in either state-run or NGO-run centers,? said Ek Kimdoeun, a deputy governor for Daun Penh district.

Every day for the last few months, 10 to 20 street children, beggars and sex workers have been rounded up and sent to the Department of Social Affairs and other centers, Mr Kimdoeun said by phone Wednesday, adding that authorities will deploy more officials for an increased crackdown starting this week. He stressed that ?local authorities and social affairs officials give the right to those arrested street people and beggars to decide which centers they prefer to go to for reeducation and vocational training.?

?We?ve collected them for the city?s beauty, especially to bring them in for vocational training. Then they will stop begging next time.?

Ten people including street children, beggars and sex workers were sent yesterday to the Phnom Penh Municipal Social Affairs Department after being rounded up from the streets of Phnom Penh, said Am Sam Ath, senior human rights monitor for the rights group Licadho.

Mr Sam Ath was among a group of rights workers banned Yesterday from entering the Ministry of Social Affairs-run Prey Speu Center in Choam Chao commune, Dangkao district.

The guard at the heavily criticized center told rights workers there were approximately 30 to 40 people in the center who had arrived this week, according to Mr Sam Ath.

Licadho Director Naly Pilorge said Wednesday that she had not heard about the impending roundups but hoped ?the municipality will find a more constructive and humane way to deal with people on the streets.?

She noted that during last year?s Water Festival sweep of beggars, the victims frequently included a broader selection of the public, including sex workers, those with mental illnesses and even children who had been separated from parents. ?This is not the way to deal with people,? she said.

During yesterday?s National Assembly debate on the foreign adoption law, CPP lawmaker Som Kimsuor asked municipality officers and the Ministry of Social Affairs to clear the streets, especially the area around traffic lights, of child beggars.

?They do not go to school, they use their younger siblings to make business, to beg,? said Mrs Kimsuor, adding that these children are in danger of being killed in traffic accidents. ?I would like the [authorities] to gather all these kids...and take them to orphanages."
Two beggars interviewed at Phnom Penh?s O?Russei Market yesterday said it had become too dangerous for them to solicit money on the streets.

?To beg here, inside the market, is safer than begging along the riverside where foreigners gather, because beggars have been captured there,? said one of the disabled beggars who declined to give his name. Nevertheless, he added, the risk of working the riverfront is sometimes worth it: ?It?s a good place to earn money.?

Sourced = The Cambodia Daily