No talking!

M has taken a vow of silence for 24 hours.

No talking....
No texting.....
No phone calls....
No email....
No instant messaging....
No chat....

The kids at school are all doing it. M LOVES to talk. He LOVES to communicate.

He will be cut off from the horde of friends he has made during our travels and at MUN conferences, who live in different countries, but it is only for 24 hours.

They have chosen to stop speaking to recognise and stand up for children who do not have the right to speak up for themselves. Children including those exploited by armies to act as soldiers, sex slaves and servants, those denied the right to attend school, and those who die from poverty every day. Children M sees everyday at the traffic lights, at the market, at major intersections, outside stores, on construction sites, pulling rubbish carts, at tourist sites and near the river.

Child labour is still widespread in Cambodia according to the report on children's work by the International Labour Organization, UNICEF (United Nations International Children Emergency Fund) and the World Bank; 'Children forced out of school and into labour to help their families make ends meet are denied the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for gainful employments, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty.' This is despite Cambodian Labour Law which sets a general minimum working age of 15 years, but allows children aged 12-14 to perform 'light' work that is not 'hazardous to their health' or does not 'interfere with their schooling'. The government claims not to have the resources to enforce these laws. The proportion of working children has decreased slightly over the past few years, but still over 50 percent of 7-14 year olds in Cambodia are engaged in economic activities, a number that is very high compared to other countries with similar levels of income, according to the report.



Cambodia also has one of the highest rates of child trafficking in the world. According to Mu Soc Hua Cambodia’s minister of women's affairs an estimated 30 000 children are trafficked a year both domestically and across international boarders. It is considered a hub, somewhere it is easy to find children and cheap to buy them, poor and relatively lawless. trafficking is the worst form of child labour. Trafficked children are particularly vulnerable. They have been separated from their families and communities often isolated in another country or region they do not know. They probably can not speak the language, can not get help and even if they did know where they were, have no way of getting home. Isolated in this way, they are commonly the victims of abuse and at the mercy of their employers or the people who are controlling their lives. They risk sexual aggression, starvation, loss of liberty, beatings and other forms of violence. Cambodian children (and adults) are trafficked for the commercial sex trade, as couriers in the drug trade, to work in factories, agriculture, as domestic maids and into begging rings in neighbouring countries.




'Free the children' was started in 1995 by the Kielburger brothers, who, at 12 years of age, decided they could make a difference. It's primary goals are to free children from poverty and exploitation and to free young people from the notion that they are powerless and to affect positive change in the world through empowerment, education and leadership programs and a partnering up of children in the developed world with those in the developing world. It is now the world's largest network of children helping children through education, involves more than 1 million young people in 45 different countries and now works in partnership with the United Nations. It has received the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (the Nobel Peace prize for Children) and been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize 3 times.

It is a child led revolution.