Young people, mostly women, from all over Cambodia have been
migrating into the nation's capital city of Phnom Penh in unbelievable numbers in pursuit of education and work opportunities
they can't get anywhere else in the country. Phnom Penh has the best
schools, universities, modernity and social mobility in Cambodia.. This mass
exodus can create 'detrimental chain reactions' for local villages
now suffering a shortage of able-bodied young people. One village in
particular lost 600 people in one year. In order to combat a
situation like this, government intervention is vital in redirecting
resources to rural development, which in Cambodia has been
increasingly damaged by horrible economic concessions and land-grabs.
Even Phnom Penh sees it's fair share of dislocations, particularly
around the Boeng Kak Lake area, which I had the opportunity to personally watch
shrink from a vast, beautiful lake to a few scattered puddles
evaporating in a flat basin of misery between Summer of 2010 and
Summer of 2012. However, the condition of rural Cambodia is
substantially worse. Vast swathes of land are being sold to
international investors (mostly Chinese). I've seen some of the
concession areas from helicopter, miles of ruined earth and shattered
trees bordering deliciously lush, beautiful rainforest just waiting
to be turned into shitty rubber plantations or vacation homes. I've
spoken to people being displaced by government land-grabs and sorrowed
over the utterly inadequate compensation these populations can
expect. And I've seen the impact these policies have on local
wildlife. It's not good.
I
apologize, I got off track. This is an issue that is very close to my
heart. One additional idea, back on topic, that is important to
consider is that during the Khmer Rouge, almost 30 percent of the
Cambodian population was brutally murdered. These were the doctors,
lawyers, teachers, people who wore glasses, women in positions of
power, anyone
in positions of power. They killed all the grown ups. Cambodia is now
a nation of youth, with over 70 percent of the total population under
30 years of age. So now what happens when all these young people
abandon the remaining seniors for the city. Implications too
frightening and irrelevant-to-the-topic to get into now.
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