Group says Preah Vihear dispute has displaced 700 children to areas without schools
Photo by:
Tracey Shelton
Children play at Preah Vihear temple in this file photo.
HUNDREDS of children from farming families forced to move from their
communities due to tensions on the Thai-Cambodian border have been cut
off from access to education, says a local development group.
According
to the NGO Street Children Assistance & Development Program
(SCADP), almost 700 children, aged 6 to 16, cannot attend school
because they have followed their parents to live in recently
established villages in Samroang district, Oddar Meanchey province,
where there are no schools.
"The result is these people's children
have lost their access to education," said Yim Sokhary, executive
director and founder of SCADP.
She explained that most of the new
migrants who have arrived in Samroang district this year were drawn to
the remote area because the government provided social land concessions
for poor families.
According to Hun Phoapveasna, Samroang district
deputy governor, the majority of new migrants to his district this year
have arrived seeking an escape from rising tension in border provinces
due to the military standoff between Cambodia and Thailand. He said,
however, that as the situation calmed down, increasing numbers of
people were going home.
Yim Sokhary said that domestic migration in
Cambodia was very prevelant at the moment, with many families
continuing to move from place to place due to lack of employment
opportunities, lack of land or lack of farming work in their native
provinces.
In order to help reduce internal migration, she urged
local authorities to examine the reasons behind migration patterns in
order to take measures to help vulnerable families.
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