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in detention centers to provide support children and youth. Recent research concerning
children in Cambodian prisons highlights that the majority of them are held in pretrial
detention, have little or no access to education programs, have inadequate food
and health care, are subject to violence and are generally not separated from adult
prisoners 44 . Subsequent to their release from prison, children are highly susceptible
to further conflict with the law given the lack of rehabilitation and education support
provided to young people while detained.
Relocations
The increasing issue regarding the right to land and housing and relocation of population,
has seriously impacted on the street children/youth population. The rate and scale of
land confis-cation and forced evictions has risen remarkably in recent years, caused
by development and so-called beautification projects, including slum clearance 45 and
construction of roads and other infrastructure.
According to the Phnom Penh based NGO, Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT): ‘... between
1990 and 1996, an estimated 3,100 families were displaced in Phnom Penh, between
1997 and 2003, 9,200 families were displaced, and between 2004 and 2008, 14,300
families were displaced. In total, at least 26,600 Phnom Penh families, approximately
133,000 residents or eleven percent of the city’s population of 1.2 million, have been
evicted since 199046 ’. On the national level, precise figures are not prevalent, however,
‘the rate of forced evictions appears to have increased in conjunction with, inter alia, the
granting of concessions over vast tracts of land to private investors. Rural landlessness,
often also caused by forced evictions, rose from 13 percent in 1997 to between 20 and
25 percent in 2007 47 ’. Evictions have had a significant impact on a large number of
children whose families have been forced to move outside of Phnom Penh (or other
main cities), having to leave their homes and to stay in remote locations, to find new
employments when possible, new sources of income, schools for their children...
CSCN
24 CSCN Street Children Profile 2009