The Phnom Penh Post
After 11 years of begging on the streets of Ho Chi Minh city, 14-year-old Sok Sang still relies on body language and a cheerful smile as he wanders through markets from daybreak till nightfall seeking change from adults. He has picked up just a few phrases of Vietnamese, like “please give a little bit of money” and “do you want to buy a lottery ticket?”
The second phrase he learned about two years ago when police began cracking down on beggars because tourists found them disturbing. Beggars in Ho Chi Minh, including hundreds of Cambodian children, switched to selling lottery tickets to avoid being rounded up, detained and sent back to the parched fields of Svay Rieng province, where most of them were born.
Sok Sang left his home in Svay Rieng province’s Kampong Rou district with his older brother when he was three. He remembers almost nothing about it: not even his mother’s face. But even though he cannot remember what she looks like, he says he and his brother need to earn enough to send her about US$30 a month.
“I cannot waste the money that I earn because I have to send it to my mother to support my family. They have no land, no food. They need rice,” he explains, his smile quickly replaced by a look of depression.
The second phrase he learned about two years ago when police began cracking down on beggars because tourists found them disturbing. Beggars in Ho Chi Minh, including hundreds of Cambodian children, switched to selling lottery tickets to avoid being rounded up, detained and sent back to the parched fields of Svay Rieng province, where most of them were born.
Sok Sang left his home in Svay Rieng province’s Kampong Rou district with his older brother when he was three. He remembers almost nothing about it: not even his mother’s face. But even though he cannot remember what she looks like, he says he and his brother need to earn enough to send her about US$30 a month.
“I cannot waste the money that I earn because I have to send it to my mother to support my family. They have no land, no food. They need rice,” he explains, his smile quickly replaced by a look of depression.
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