 |
 |
|
Srey Mom's story
|
|
|
|
Srey Mom lives in Kompong Cham province, in Khor Roka village with both her parents and her younger brother. Her father works as a woodcutter as well as in a coal manufacture while her mother cooks and takes care of the family. However their life is far from being serene. Her father is violent and frequently beats her mother. Srey Mom even evokes one day when her father brandished his woodcutter's axe threatening her mother to kill her. One day, despite her scarce, Srey Mom's mother decides to escape. She takes advantage of the night to run away from home taking her two children with her. Arrived to Phnom Penh, Srey Mom's mother hears about a Cambodian NGO called Khemara located about 6 km to the north of Phnom Penh. The NGO welcomes abandoned women with children and proposes them sewing and cooking training sessions in order to help them find a job. In the daytime, the children are sent to school. But as the three newcomers undergo a medical check-up, the mother is found HIV positive. According to the results of a first testing, Srey Mom, who is 10, is found HIV negative. Yet worried about her health and considering that unlike her young brother, she is old enough to be sent away, the Khemara's staff members entrust the young girl to the Krousar Thmey temporary centre for street children called Psar Dépôt in April 1999. Four months later, Srey Mom is sent to the permanent protection centre in Takhmau, 15 km away from Phnom Penh. Srey Mom is first able to keep in touch with her mother, with whom contacts soon become more and more scarce. As far as the young girl knows, her mother is alive and still lives with her young brother in the Khemara centre. |
| |
