Cambodia: Portrait of Hunger

Written on October 13, 2010
By Natasha Burge
Conducive Chronicle

Today is my second day exploring world hunger as part of Conducive Chronicle’s 21 Days for Hunger. Last May, when I did my first world hunger series, I mimicked the diet of the world’s hungriest people for the entire seven days of my journey. I tried, in my own small way, to get a glimpse into chronic hunger. While I found that 1,000 calories a day left me weak and exhausted and overwhelmingly hungry, it soon became abundantly clear that my experiment would never give me the insight that I was hoping for. With the unavoidable knowledge that I could quit, walk into my overstuffed kitchen, and eat at anytime, I could never even come close to understanding the true horrors of chronic hunger. For most of us, chronic hunger is a distant thing that happens to distant people. I know in my life it isn’t something I’m confronted with on a daily basis, except through books, articles, and news reports. And yet, nearly 1 billion people live with hunger every single day. 1 out of 6 human beings on our planet does not have enough to eat, even while there is more than enough food for everyone. Nearly 1 billion people…So many people who know hunger, who understand its depths, its terrors, its many faces, and yet, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone tell their story. I knew I could continue going over the facts and statistics and mind-numbing numbers day after day, but I felt that I would never be able to do more than gloss the surface. No report I could quote or paper I could cite would ever be able to give us more than a glimpse into real hunger. I wanted more than that; I wanted to hear directly from a person who had suffered from chronic hunger. I wanted to hear their story. Today I will share my interview with Ms. Pry Phally Phuong, the director of Building Community Voices, a capacity building and community networking NGO in Cambodia, as well as a survivor of chronic hunger under the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime.

Asia and the Pacific are home to over half of the world’s population and nearly 2/3 of the world’s hungry people. There are 642 million people in Asia and the Pacific struggling with chronic hunger, and Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia. After the violence of the Vietnam War displaced millions of Cambodians and left the country in turmoil and conflict created famine, the brutal Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The new regime emptied the cities and sent the people to work in the fields, determined to cast aside all modern progress and Western influence, and create an agrarian utopia emulating the 11th century. Nearly 1 million Cambodians, 1 out of 8 people, died under the Khmer Rouge through executions, overwork, starvation, or disease.

In 1991, the United Nations was given the power to enforce a ceasefire after a comprehensive peace settlement was reached. However, the violence and tragedy of the Khmer Rouge years fractured Cambodian society, killed entire generations of people, and set the nation’s progress back decades. The International Food Policy Research Institute has named Cambodia one of the world’s 12 hunger hotspots to highlight the massive rate of food insecurity the country faces. The average life expectancy in Cambodia is only 56 years, with people dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases that have been virtually wiped out in much of the rest of the world. The Cambodian government estimates that only 29 percent of their citizens have access to safe drinking water. Only 57 percent of Cambodian women can read and write, and more than half of all children are not attending school in order to work. This kind of poverty is difficult to overcome. It creates a legacy of hunger and impoverishment, passed down from generation to generation like an unwanted inheritance. To further understand chronic hunger, and the lingering, devastating aftereffects such devastation can have for a country and its people, I turned to Ms. Pry Phally Phuong.

Burge: Could you provide a biography of yourself, your background, where you are from, where you work, what your work’s focus is?
Pry Phally Phuong: I am Ms. Pry Phally Phuong. I have a big family with five brothers and four sisters, I am the forth child in the family, and I was born in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. I holds Master’s Degree of Business Administration in the field of General Management at Institute of Business Education. Since 1979, I worked as a teacher in Primary school, but after that in 1992 I had worked as a part –time job with one Organization known as Australian People for Health Education and Development Abroad (APHEDA) on the program of Hospitality. It was the program for youth girls who could not get get a chance to learn in the University, and the other part time job was with the Government (teacher). From 1995- 2000 I started to work full time with APHEDA by teaching accountant to the youth girls and built the capacity of the teachers in NGOs or Women Association in Provinces who got funding from APHEDA. In 2000- 2005, I moved to work for Oxfam Hong Kong and after that this NGO had changed the name to be Womyn’ s Agenda for Change (WAC), and I was responsible for the speak out project with grass root people. I organized and established the Sex Workers Association which called Women’ s Network for Unity (WNU) to focus on Sex Worker Empowerment Project with success, and in 2005-2007 I was in charge of the project of Violence Against Women. And in 2008 up to now I moved to work with a new NGO called Building Community Voices (BCV) as the Director of BCV. BCV is a local NGO that works for providing networking, capacity building and community media to support Cambodia communities and community mobilizing so that they can speak to each other and with outside stakeholders in order to have a vibrant and proud Cambodian civil society.

Burge: What circumstances led to you facing chronic hunger?

Pry Phally Phuong: On 17th April, 1975, all the Cambodian were evacuated from their house to live in rural areas or outside the city by saying that they need to rearrange the city again, and we can come back after one week, but, of course, they dismissed people from cities (24 provinces and cities) to stay in the countryside. On that time they divided Cambodian into 3 categories :

1- Old people (people who used to stay in the liberated zone forever before or from 1970-1975.)

2- Middle people (people who in that zone for some time and moved to live in the city and came back to that place before 1975.)

3- New people (people who were dismissed from city to stay in that places after 1975.)

I am and other who were evicted from cities in April 1975 were considered as the New People which the Old People had blame us that we were the people who did not do nothing, just bring the empty stomach to eat and destroy their properties or they said that we were the capitalists who could not do anything besides eating.

During that time, they had separated all members of New People families to live in different places by dividing into several groups such as mobile child groups (from 6 – 15 years old), mobile youth groups (from 16 years old up), villagers ( people who married already). The two first groups lived in the camps or centers while the last groups lived in their house.

The mobile youth group had to stay far away from the villages and worked very hard with the mobile areas for building dams or plantation rice in the new farms in the forest or in the areas near the mountains.

The villagers need to work in the villages, but they could not stay with their children who were six years old or up, because this children need to stay in the shelter for the mobile children group and they had to get up from 3 or 4 am and walked to the work places (the work places and their shelter were far away).

During that time we were working hard by working from early morning (3 or 4 am) up to 11pm and had around one hour for lunch and two hours for dinner and if we talk about these meals we never had enough food and rice, we had only one small bowl of porridge and sometimes we could have some rice mixed with potatoes or corn. And the most common meals were a little rice with leaves of plant.

For me, during that time I was very skinny and never have a chance to stay with my family, and my mom told me to try to work and say nothing about my living in the city. Furthermore, I stayed at the mobile youth group, which was located in the forest near the mountain that was very far away from my family place, and I never went to visit them. My mom had a chance to come and visit me once a year with permission from her authority. Whenever she came to visit me, she brought some potatoes, coconuts, and ripe tamarinds, and sometimes my young sisters who stayed with the children’s group tried their best to steal potatoes and catch some fishes for me. I had tried to work hard but I never have enough meals to eat, I had only porridge all the time. And I needed to find something to add to my meals.
Burge: When you were going hungry, what were your best options for finding food? How did you survive? What was a typical day of food, or a meal like?

Pry Phally Phuong: In Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979), when I was hungry, I tried to make some hats from palm leaves for my supervisors (old people) or made pillow clothes from cotton thread to exchange with some people who work in kitchen for getting some salt, tamarind, and rice crusts (these things I could share with friends nearby me) or I went to catch crabs or pick up some leaves of plants to fill up my empty stomach. I tried to work hard every day, so my supervisor liked me, and I could keep some private food in my shelter. And my teammates always asked me to keep adding food in my place.

For food or soups was the same as water no tasty. Every month, there were a real rice with simple soup, a soup cooked with a fish or pork in a big pan but its meats were never seen, for the outstanding active group. I was very lucky to be in that group. I could eat the pure rice with salt. I felt I was still alive and my strength came back.

Burge: Many of our readers have never experienced chronic hunger. Can you tell us how it is to live with that every day? How does it change the way you view the world?

Pry Phally Phuong: From 1975-1979 in Pol Pot Regime, I had worked as a mobile youth group to build the Dam, plantation rice, carry human’s excrement from the toilet to make fertilizer by mixing up with green grass for the plantation rice and never had soap for cleaning my hands and body, I just cleaned my hands with the leaves of trees. During that time I were working hard by working from early morning (3 or 4 am) up to 11pm and had around one hour for lunch and two hours for dinner, I were very hungry, but I eat some leaves of plants and tamarind which I got from the kitchen. I were very tied but I could not sit down for a rest, so I went to toilet even I could not make an excrement, I just went to sit and get the bad smell from the toilet, it is better than carry the soil on my solders to build the dam and the other way I pretend to drink the hot water. These kinds of ways could make me have a little rest. During the raining season worked in the rice farm near the dam, which the mobile youth group build it. Sometimes when it was raining like cats and dogs, it made the dam broken, the water flooded over the rice field, so we could have a rest for a while, and if we talked about the meals we never had enough food and rice, we had only porridge for one small bowl with a little food and some time we could have some rice which cook rice mixed with potatoes or corn if we have the rice mixed up with potatoes or corn, it is lucky for me. So it means that I need to get up early morning to work until midnight, I slept only four or five hours per day. I was living in the hell for 3 years 8 months and 20 days. It was a nightmare.

After the liberation day from 1979 – 1985, I have changed my life, I worked as a primary teacher at the morning and work in the rice field at afternoon. I did not get salary but I got the rice or corn one kilogram, one liter of gasoline, two bars of soaps a month. Because the rice, which we produced were in the forest or were destroyed by the war. Not only my family, all the Cambodian people were poor, the families that had male members were better, because they had the strong people to carry some rice for keeping in their house, but for me, I have only the four girls, two little boys, and my mom, we could not carry heavy things, just only me and my older sister, but unfortunately we were very skinny, so I could carry five times equal with a man or boy did once. My family was poor but it is better than in Pol Pot Regime. We could have a good rest as we wished. My mom tried to make vegetable or cucumbers pickle or bean sprouts to sell or exchange with some rice. I still was trying to make some hats from palm leaves to exchange for rice also. Furthermore, in 1982 there was a tailor near my house, her name is Ms. Sokhom. There was no sewing machine at the time. So when I was free, I always went to help her for sewing something then she explained me on how to cut and how to sew and then I started to be a tailor apart from my teaching (at that time teachers just worked half day every day). So I was the teacher at the morning, worked in the farm at the afternoon, and worked as a tailor at evening. Even if I worked hard, I could sew a skirt or blouse in exchange for just only one kilogram of rice per each item. I could not see the outside world; it seemed that the world was very small. We were afraid of return of Pol Pot Regime because the Pol Pot soldiers continued their activities to rob our rice or property. So we decided to send our two siblings (a brother and a sister) to live with the Governor of Kramoun Sar province (Khmer Kampuchea Krom) in Viet Nam. If we all would die, we have two brother and sister left.

Burge: How did you emotionally and mentally endure this time in your life? How did those experiences shape who you are today and what you are doing with your life?

Pry Phally Phuong: When I was young, I always dreamed to be a girl with good education and good job unfortunately through the three regimes went by, I felt very disappointed and despaired because my family was very poor. We could not make ends meet, and we ate from hand to mouth. However; as a daughter of government official in the previous regime (Sihanouk Regime), an idea of struggle came into my mind, I accepted the painful situation, and I had tried my best to work both as full time and part-time job. I pursued my study at night school program until I obtained secondary education certificate. At free time, I studied English with my friends. It was just a peer education. We lighted candles at night time to study and receiving oppression from the government at the time because foreign languages were not allowed to study in any forms. If we were caught while studying foreign languages except Vietnamese and Russian, we would be subject to both fine and penalty or go to prison.

At the present, everything is still fresh in my mind; these living conditions have led me to make an untiring effort to continue my study until I obtain Master’s Degree and achieve what I have today. Now I am the Director of Organization, BCV, I have my present status thanks to my enduring all hardships. As I experienced through the poverty, I am willing to assist poor people by building net workings, organizing and mobilizing through community media in order that they receive the real information and share with their groups and have an opportunity to discuss and speak to each other both inside and outside Cambodia. Therefore, they can stand up together to protect both their own interests and national forest, national resources, and their lands.

Burge: Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia, with 26% of the population undernourished. What do you see as the main causes of hunger in Cambodia?
Pry Phally Phuong: I personally think that main causes of hunger in Cambodia are privatization, micro finance institutions, land, forest, mining, tourism, and Hydro-dam concession.

The Cambodia government had privatized all main sectors such as health, education, electricity, banking, forest, fishery and water. As can be seen in the health care system, under the pretext of just paying to recover cost, it requires people to pay health care service fee which is inaccessible for the most people. This system can function only for rich people, but not for the poor. At the same time people living in the cities or downtown are encountered with a rise in electricity and water prices too.

In addition, at the early of 1996, many microfinance institutions always have charged at least four percent of interest rate per month, now after some microfinance institution have transferred into the bank, they charge at least three percent per month which is equal to 36 percent per year from borrowers. Many poor people who have borrowed money from these institutions such as ACLEDA bank, AMRETH become indebted. In order to pay back the interest at the end of the month, people sell cows, pigs, and then their land, bit by bit until they have nothing left.

Moreover, due to the government policy to provide economic land concessions, many land concessions are made on people lands without consultations and resulting in the eviction of people or their replacement without due process or proper compensations, and the evicted people have to live in the place where there is not basic social infrastructures such as water, electricity, market, school and hospital. Some land concessions over leaped on people land which cause social conflict, and while other concessions are on the forest which people depend on its non-timber products for their livelihood.

Burge: 35% of Cambodians live below the poverty line, with 15%-20% living in extreme poverty. Can you explain how this poverty becomes an inherited condition that is extremely hard to escape from?

Pry Phally Phuong: This poverty has become an inherited condition from one generation to another. It is extremely hard to escape because their parents are in debts, and they could not pay back. These debts are the burden for their children to settle. Many people send their children especially their daughters to work as garment workers who loose weight and live in an unhealthy conditions. This situation causes their health problems and leads to borrow money from the moneylenders with high interest rate. This fall into the cycle in debt. At the present, poor people are faced with the land issues and forest concessions. Many people lose their agriculture lands and could not do farming. Some people sell out their lands to settle debts, while other people have to migrate to find other employment. Moreover, government policy is likely to pay lip service and turn blind eyes on the poor. It focuses on the capitalism, which stays far away from the poor.

Burge: Can you please talk about sweatshops and how and why they thrive in impoverished areas? Many Westerners think sweatshops are good alternatives to other kinds of work, and that the people working in sweatshops want the job. Can you tell us about the truth behind the myth? What is it really like? How can we create better alternatives?

Pry Phally Phuong: Because of debt, the young girls migrated to find the job in the cities, some can work in garment factories, and some worked as the construction workers, and others worked as the beggars. They need to pay for getting the job in the factories, and when they got the job, they need to stay together (roommates) for 4-5 people in one room, that room is about 3 x 4m or 4 x 5m and every worker need to pay $7 a month and for meals at least is around $0.70 or 0.80 USD a day, pay for utility around $5 per month, and they need to pay for extra cost if they have problem with their health. Sometimes the employers force them to work overtime. They cannot reject overtime even they feel not good health. If they reject one time, next time they cannot have a chance to work overtime or managers will find the other way to accuse them and dismiss them from the factory. Moreover, in the factories they did not have the hospital staff, if the factories have the hospital staff, they just have only the medicine for headache and diarrhea. All the workers got problems with their health worse and worse, because of working condition and eat a little bit for earning some money to send back to their parents, sometimes they earned nothing because of their health. In Cambodia the labor law is good, but it is good in the book. The people or the employers never respect the law and human rights. They just respect the money. For some girls who could not find the job and have a low education, it easy for the bad people (Peem) persuade them to work in the brothels or karaoke which easy to be the indirect sex workers and after that they got HIV/AIDS easily.

Many people in Western always think that working in the factories is good alternative because in the Western countries, the workers get salary that they can spend enough for their live (standard salary), their working condition is good standard, and the employers respect the law and human rights.

For making this alternative better, the government should enforce the law and thinking about human being before profit. Punishing employers who forced the workers to work overtime without respect the workers’ right. The factories need to have the real hospital staff to cure the workers. The government needs to allow the union to do the events or demonstration to demand their rights and stop cheating workers. And furthermore when the government make agreement with the employers, the government need to demand the employers to respect the Cambodia law and transfer all technology to Cambodian people.

Burge: What projects have you worked on or seen that have successfully lessened poverty and the chronic hunger that plagues Cambodia? Could you describe why they worked so well?
Pry Phally Phuong: For my idea the project that can reduce poverty is the organizing and mobilizing project because this project can work with grassroot people (community people) to have ownership (community ownership) and they can analyze their issues or donors strategies by themselves through community media for discussing and sharing the real information and after that they can stand up together for demanding the government to re-form the inappropriate development project for stopping or delay the land, forest, mining, hydro-Dam, and tourist concessions and solve the problems of what I mentioned above.

Now some of communities people have strong commitment and solidarity because they are facing with the same problems on land and forest conflict and eviction without paying compensation, so they developed the strategic to demand or submit the complaint files to the government or relevant ministries for suggesting to solve their problems before continuing to provide the land, forest, mining, Hydro-dam, and tourist concession. And if the government would like to continue to provide land and forest concession , the government need to conduct the real consultation with the community people who are staying in those areas, and the companies need to research on impact first. Moreover, if the government want to solve the problems, the government have to stop providing land and forest concession, it means that they can reduce poverty.

So, I think that if the community people have the real ownership and an opportunity to share and discuss each other, support each other, so they can develop the strategic for running people movement to push or educate the government for change its policy.

Burge: What do you wish more people knew about poverty and chronic hunger?
Pry Phally Phuong: I would like to share these issues with other people inside and outside Cambodia, because here all the national TV channels never provide coverage of the negative impacts of inappropriate development projects and real situations of the community people who were evicted by force or violence without pay any compensation due to land and forest concession on lands and forests of indigenous people and non indigenous people, they are always selective or pro-government, if they are brave and dare to show the real information, they will loss the benefits or cannot run the TV channels. So, if I have the network outside the country I can send the community media (media that produce by community people themselves) or arrange the exposure trip to outside world by sending a few community to share these experiences with people around the world to learn more about situation in Cambodia.

I would also like to more people to know about poverty in Cambodia due to government policy and about the reasons of chronic hunger to make Cambodians poorer and poorer. Many people cannot make a living by seeking local job and migrate illegally to neighboring countries and were shot to death. Some people live from hand to mouth. Other people cannot have enough rice to eat. They just can find manioc to eat for survive. While another people fall in debt cycle from their parents to children and have nothing left to live as a decent life. They have no land to do farming. Their children can go to school while a number of children who have an opportunity to study, they must drop school in order to help their family. Their life are miserable. In this country there are a big gap between the rich and the poor. The rich become richer and richer while the poor become poorer and poorer. The rich people have everything they need. They have many big houses, cars, air conditioners and luxury items. They go to good restaurants and have healthy, delicious and expensive food while the poor people live in small house or shelters and sometimes in the tents. They cannot afford to have enough rice to eat for survive. They eat rice with salt, or they share an egg with a whole family.

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Thank you very much to Ms. Pry Phally Phuong for sharing her story with us.

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