Read This And Be Shocked About Cambodian Living Conditions

Tucked quietly an hour away from the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh live 50 or so families in hot sheds with no utilities, food, or wages/earnings. The sheds are crude and elementary,sometimes 122 degrees in the hotest part of the day, other times a balmy 95 degrees on better days.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mann Chhoeun said those who were relocated got a plot of land, a house and $275. He also noted they were provided rice, electricity(which hardly ever works). He reassured that the water would be connected "sometime in the future", little solace to those who are dying and living in these conditions. This was their new lot in life, a life where they have been relocated numerous times, shun away from the light of the world, the glitz, glamour, and media attention, the Red Cross, and donations of charity and goodwill.

The highlight of their lives, one we Americans would shutter to conceive of ever tolerating was when these families lived in a shantytown in the Cambodian capital, an area called Borei Keila that was across the street from a hospital where they received medical care and where they could find jobs to earn $1.25 or $1.50 a day.

Most of the families that were moved to Tuol Sambo were told that they have lost their jobs, their health is worsening due to a lack of clean water and food, and they face discrimination from their new neighbors.

Mann Chhoeun said the people were illegally squatting in the Phnom Penh shantytown, but they were not forcefully evicted.

What do these families share in common? What could possibly keep them from having a relatively normal life with other people? The answer is simple. They all suffer from AIDS.

The estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Cambodia is 67,000. Vulnerable groups are: Entertainment workers, men having sex with men, injection drug users. There is, as anyone would know by now, a thriving sex industry in Cambodia, furthering the detrioration of the health in Cambodia.

see video about prostitution infiltration in Cambodia

The living conditions in Cambodia for AIDS patients is worsening.For more information, click here.