“Souvenir, buy? Buy?” she edged her hands towards me, showing the assortments of merchandise in her small bag. I sat overwhelmed. She couldn’t have been more than ten. I instinctively checked my watch, and it was not even noon yet. I knew it was a weekday then, so I assumed she should be in school. Being an inexperienced traveller, I asked her. My mother, sitting across the table looked at me incredulously and shook her head in disapproval.

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“Bracelet?” The young girl showed me a selection of small, presumably handmade bracelets. I figured she attempted to direct me to her merchandise to evade my questions – or it could simply be that she didn’t understand me. Her English vocabulary must have been limited only to words that would aid her sales. My mother waved her hand gently to refuse her offer. The smile on the girl vanished. Crestfallen, she made her way to the next table. I felt a pang of immense guilt in my heart. 

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Sympathy is often the key to us falling prey to such businesses. But I couldn’t help myself, I called her back. She turned, and her smile revived – that sweet innocent smile. I said I would buy if I could take a photo of her. She blushed but nodded her head. I took a few snaps and made my selection. True enough, they were overpriced, but I was beyond caring at that point. I handed her five dollars for two bracelets that would have cost four dollars and did not want any change in return. To my surprise, she insisted that I must accept her returned dollar.

 

A few days later I visited Ta Prohm Temple. It was indeed a beautiful ruin. But amidst that wonder, my eyes were caught transfixed upon a young girl pacing around an open area within the temple itself. Her clothes were ragged, dirty, and her hair was dishevelled. Most of the crowd were avoiding her, and I immediately knew she was not a lost tourist child. The girl was truly, an orphaned beggar. Her movement seemed ghost-like, in a way that was so unnatural that I thought if she was indeed an apparition.

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My practised hands instinctively reached out for my camera, and I took several hasty shots. She turned to the sound of the camera’s shutter and her gaze found me. I could not interpret the thoughts behind that gaze. I could only tell that I felt icy cold and an indescribable sense of guilt. There I was, again, faced upon that ethical debate about capturing the privacy of another being, without their acknowledgement or permission. But within this circumstance, the implication of that felt even more profound. My moral battle was equally matched by the premonition of me capturing an unsightly image; combating against my journalistic responsibility to create awareness of such an event. 

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She swayed toward me. I felt my heartbeat quickened, and like the coward I am, I hastily rejoined the crowd of tourists. Almost an hour passed, and I had walked across the length of the entire temple, and yet the girl was still there. She was tailing me but she kept her distance. 

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I was feeling dubious about the whole scenario until my tour guide came and noticed the girl following me. He came to my rescue and confronted the girl in their native language, and with a hand, he waved her off. I never remembered seeing another dejected look. She turned away from him and continued her peculiar swaying movement, all the while staring at the tourist’s children with a look I couldn’t quite describe.

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After we left the temple, I asked my tour guide for an explanation, of which he explained that the girl saw me taking a picture of her. She thought that I was interested to purchase her. I was stunned and my face grew pale. I did not even bother asking for clarifications as to what nature ‘purchase’ is. He then proceeded to tell me his views on his country.

 

Underlying the beautiful vistas and holy city of Cambodia, there rested a darker repercussion of an abnormal social lifestyle. Decades earlier before the country even became a tourist attraction; Cambodia underwent the Khmer revolution and genocide of the Cambodian Civil War. The horrors of that atrocity lingered till the present. With that, came social unrest, and among it several twisted ideologies and prejudice. Among the Khmer era’s agenda was the systematic elimination of knowledge. Educated citizens during those times were classified as dangerous and therefore persecuted and eliminated. Even the very idea of wearing glasses was linked to sophistication and therefore considered blasphemous. As a result of the genocide, Cambodia now faces a serious lack of educated citizens. Their literacy is severely below average. It was said that even the literate survivors of the massacre refused to be publicly acknowledged. But this social structure contradicts the needs of a society to function. 

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The literate and wealthy hence began to rise in power among the populace as businessmen, professionals, and educators. The lack of able professionals created such a demand for them that they became powerful. As such, the segregation of classes became extremely apparent, and thus the margin between the wealthy and poor became even larger. Under a questionable country policy of using USD as a primary currency for trade; the social state of the majority became even more endangered. Poverty now lies rampant throughout the country. 

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Working becomes an absolute necessity for every member of the family, including the feeble old or the youngest child. Every source of income is welcomed for the family to maintain itself in this competitive environment. With the severe lack of qualifications to classify each individual, the rivalry for jobs becomes an open ground for everyone; thus becoming another cause for social disorder. Deeply corrupted ideologies that literacy is scorned upon, alongside the general lack of awareness of the importance of education, and adding on the pressured necessity for maximum labour contribution per family – education as a general need for every child is now an unfeasible idea. Families often remark that sending their child to school is too expensive or a waste of time; while they are better off aiding their family to place bread on the table and keep a little at the side. While this does raise a net family’s income to above survival levels, it is only temporary relief and will further weaken the society in the long run. 

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These images of my travels serve as a reminder to its audiences that while in some countries, education is so ubiquitous it is taken for granted; in some others, it is a privilege or actually stigmatized upon. I intended these to become a part of a collective consciousness among us to be aware of the situation at hand. These pictures provide a more humanistic alternative to cold statistics for the mindful to reassess the outcomes of poor political judgement or political inaction.

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I am still morally conflicted as I was in Ta Prohm Temple, but I intend to stimulate the viewer’s opinion and perhaps gives impetus for another angle for public debate. I took these images with a surety that any photograph depicting children at work would by definition be an anti-child-labour photograph. 

The country may be limping its way out of its dark past, and just barely stays within operational status for the moment. But against the rest of the globalized world, Cambodia will face a large epidemic of the illiterate workforce in the future. Cambodia’s prime focus now should not be of economic stability; and not even a strong tourism industry. It should be of restoring their quota of literacy among its populace and break away that social segregation. Cambodia’s future, of economy, culture, and identity lies with their children.

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Their children still lurk in the dark corners of ruins and streets. A particular child’s smile keeps me hopeful for a bright future, while a certain ghostly sway keeps me haunted, fearing the worst.