PHNOM PENH (dpa) – The boulevard from Phnom Penh’s landmark national monument to the Tonle Sap River divides the popular downtown tourist area to the north from the ragged shacks to the south.
Kunthea, 21, lives south of the boulevard. In platform shoes and a flowery ankle-length dress, the prostitute stands out from her half-naked neighbours and family members squatting on the dirt floor of Kunthea’s house.One of them is Thy, her mother and a local garbage collector, who describes her daughter’s sudden change in behaviour after she began using “yama” or methamphetamine nearly one year ago.“The scars are from when she bites her skin,” Thy says as she points to the marks on her daughter’s arms. “She beats herself and she’s always sick.”“Sometimes she eats the soil and runs around the house naked,” she says. “I don’t know why she does this. She doesn’t even recognize that I am her mother.”Experts say that until recently most of the victims in Cambodia of the global drug epidemic were glue-sniffing youths.Other synthetic drugs were reserved for the expatriate community and some immigrants from countries with longer histories of drug use such as neighbouring Vietnam, Thailand, and China.But with an increase in synthetic drugs being trafficked across Cambodia’s relatively porous borders, more native Cambodian prostitutes, residents living along the Thai border, and wealthy young people living in the capital are starting to use methamphetamines.“A few years ago we never saw any Khmer prostitutes using drugs, but now we see more and more Khmer prostitutes using amphetamines,” said Chan Meng, an official from a local organization that rescues and educates prostitutes working in brothels.“I doesn’t seem like police can do much to stop the problem,” she says.The trend among what was once thought of as a drug abuse-free native population in Cambodia, means few statistics are available on methamphetamine use.However, the Interior Ministry’s Anti-Drug Department seized more than 35,000 amphetamine pills in Cambodia last year, compared to 23,000 in 1999, most of which were confiscated along the border with Thailand, authorities said.“We are also seeing an increase in crimes now being committed by children drug users,” said Pich Chivorn, Chief of the Anti-Drug Department.Authorities stop short of blaming drug trafficking from neighbouring countries for converting all of Cambodia’s new drug users.They also blame the increase in amphetamine use on the increase in demand among a new breed of recreational users in Cambodia who have the money and desire to experiment with drugs.Outside a popular dance club, “Rith,” 18, demonstrates how he and his Cambodian friends at the club smoke the red, button-sized methamphetamine pills he also sells, as he takes out a double mint chewing gum wrapper and burns away the flammable, non-metallic side.“After we smoke this pill we become strong and don’t need to sleep,” Rith says, rolling one end of the wrapper into a handle and using a pen to sculpt the other end that will cradle the three-dollar pill.Rith grabs a homemade smoking pipe, made out of a water bottle and two straws from under a nearby table.“I don’t ask just anyone if they want to buy,” said Rith, as he voraciously chews a piece of gum. “I know who are users before I ask them. The children of rich families, most are teenagers around 19 or 20-years-old.”Rith, like many other Cambodian youth at the club who are looking for methamphetamines, says his father is a successful businessman.This segment of the population still makes up a small minority in a country where the average annual income is under 400 dollars, yet police say their numbers are increasing, and with them the demand for methamphetamines.Despite Cambodia’s overwhelming number of international and local aid organizations, the country has been largely blind to the problem and still lacks any non-governmental organization devoted solely to combating drugs or drug rehabilitation.The government is beginning to take more steps in dealing with the problem, and the United Nations Drug Control Program is launching a Cambodia campaign, but authorities say they still have a long way to go.“In 1999, our forces were incapable of investigating this problem,” Pich Chivorn said. “Step by step we are increasing our ability, but the laws still aren’t that strict and we lack equipment. And then after we make arrests, how can we cure the users? We don’t know how.”Cambodia: Quick Facts and Figures
- Official Name State of Cambodia
- Capital City Phnom Penh
- Languages Khmer (official), French
- Official Currency Riel
- Religions Buddhism, others
- Population 11,638,000
- Land Area 176,520 sq km (68,154 sq miles)
