CAMBODIA: Food Security Threatened As Poverty Gets Worse

Channa, a hungry 4-year-old child laborer, enjoys a bowl of noodle soup at the Stung Meanchey landfill in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved

Once upon a time, a man saw the photo you see above and remarked, "When will THEY end world hunger?" To this day, I'm still trying to figure out who he thinks THEY are. Doesn't the man own a mirror?

According to a May 7th 2009 article that appeared online at IRIN, a humanitarian news and analysis project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the economic crisis has renewed food insecurity among women and children in Southeast Asia.

Coming only months after Asia's most recent food crisis, the World Bank predicts that Cambodia will be hardest hit among Southeast Asian countries.
According to the Economic Institute of Cambodia, as of May 2009, rice prices stood at 2,500 riels per kilogram (rpk) vs. 3,200 rpk a year ago (4150 riels = 1 USD May 2009). Declining food prices are creating difficulties for farmers who need to pay off debts, raising fears that urban workers returning to the countryside will not find work in the agricultural sector.

"Back-to-back effects of, first, the high food price crisis of last year and now the economic slowdown are likely to not only create categories of new poor... but also push into deeper food insecurity the already chronically poor,"

Jean-Pierre de Margerie, Cambodia country representative for the UN World Food Program (WFP), told IRIN."Last year, a majority of poor households facing higher food prices had to resort to very damaging coping mechanisms such as contracting new debts or even cutting back on food consumption," he added. Acute malnutrition in poor urban children increased to 15.9 percent in 2008 from 9.6 percent in 2005, as poor families cut back on food expenditure, according to the 2008 Cambodia Anthropometrics Survey, released in February by the government.More women are also forgoing proper nutrition and healthcare during pregnancy, raising the risk of death during childbirth, the UN said in its April 8th statement.

Five pregnant women die every day in labor, giving Cambodia one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Asia at 472 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the most recent government data from 2005.

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know I have touched on these issues in this post Worldwide Financial Crunch Hits Cambodia's Garment Industry as well as this post addressing Cambodia's urban poor.

Now my question to YOU is: Do YOU own a mirror? If you do, you may want to re-read what I said about publisher Bernard Kirsher and The Cambodia Daily:

"One frequently recurring full-page public service announcement explained a program developed by the paper's publisher, Bernard Kirsher. The program, "Skip A Meal And Save A Cambodian Child" was developed by Kirsher in conjunction with Japan Relief for Cambodia and Kirsher's own American Assistance For Cambodia (a non-profit registered as a 501c (3) organization (corporation) in the USA). The program was developed in response to The World Food Program (WFP) "abruptly halting" rice distribution to schools in 2008."

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OK great, we all have our mirrors now and we realize that THEY are US! Now you can surf around this blog to find literally dozens of ways we can become them. You might even want to contact the The Cambodia Daily directly to see what's cooking with American Assistance For Cambodia.

When viewing your mirror, does Channa, a hungry 4 year old child laborer, look like a THEY or an US to YOU?

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