Cambodia Pushes AIDS 'Colony' Far From City

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Lets go now to Cambodia, where until recently, 40 families with HIV and AIDS were living in the center of countrys capital, Phnom Penh. Then the government ordered them moved to a site 15 miles outside the city. Doualy Xaykaothao reports that this resettlement is viewed by many as a forced eviction thats created an AIDS colony.

DOUALY XAYKAOTHAO: The only usable water at this newly constructed site in Tuol Sambo is from this public well. A thin Cambodian man in a red T-shirt fills a bucket to show how dirty the water is.

Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)

XAYKAOTHAO: Families in this HIV/AIDS community complained about the cost of traveling back and forth to town for hospital visits and about the green-corrugated metal structures they now call home. From afar, the units look like metal bonds placed too close together. There are 10 partitioned rooms in each building. Thirty-five-year-old Mao Mon(ph) lives in one of them. A wooden bed takes up most of her space on the floor. She has a small fan, baskets of clothes and a pot for cooking.

Ms. MAO MON: (Foreign language spoken)

Unidentified Woman #1: She said its very, very difficult to live in here, especially the daytime - its very hot. But we didnt have choice to choose where to live when the government said you have to move.

XAYKAOTHAO: Mao Mon, like all the families in this HIV/AIDS community, used to live in central Phnom Penh at an informal settlement called Borequila(ph). That site is currently being developed by the government and Panomics, a private company. In land-sharing agreements six years ago, that company was supposed to build new residential housing on another part of Borequila for ,1700-plus families who were displaced by its projects.

The families living with HIV and AIDS were part of that displaced community, but they faced hurdles. It seems the government did not screen some of them for new Borequila housing. Others that were screened did not qualify. The government moved all of these HIV/AIDS families out of the city and into rural Tuol Sambo.

Unidentified Woman #2: (Foreign language spoken)

XAYKAOTHAO: Khmer music plays just beyond Mao Mons home. Nearby, children talk and play next to rice fields. Mao Mon is destitute. Her husband died of complications from AIDS seven years ago. She is HIV positive and lives with her son, eight-year-old Lut Yot(ph). He sits on the familys cement floor with the neighbors daughter playing a card game called Lim-By-Ho(ph) or hit the picture.

(Soundbite of game)

XAYKAOTHAO: The skinny boy is shirtless, slapping game cards in a corner that is essentially the familys kitchen floor. Behind him is a rudimentary toilet. Next to him is the familys dinner, a bowl of freshly caught frogs. There is no refrigerator for food or for the anti-retroviral drugs that his mother must take daily. As the boy plays, he talks about the friends he left behind in Phnom Penh.

LU YOT: (Foreign language spoken)

XAYKAOTHAO: I miss them, he says. I used to play with them every day, but now I dont see them anymore. Children may have lost friends, but many adults in this new community have lost their livelihoods.

Unidentified Woman #3: (Foreign language spoken)

XAYKAOTHAO: Didnt the government know we are already dying because of HIV, one woman asked with tears in her eyes. Why did they have to move us so far out of town?

(Soundbite of generator)

XAYKAOTHAO: Back in Phnom Penh with a noisy generator laboring in the background, CARE Internationals Country Director Sharon Wilkinson says that 10 years ago, Cambodia had a relocation process that she called sterling. Now with the high cost of real estate and growing demand for that real estate, Wilkinson says the government relocation process amounts to forced evictions.

Ms. SHARON WILKINSON (Country Director, CARE International): After all, if youre coming in with unwielding military. And its the case of stopping observers from the NGO community and the human rights organizations from witnessing. And this is forced eviction. And it is against Cambodias law.

XAYKAOTHAO: Wilkinson says city officials did not work with non-governmental agencies to try and find more adequate housing for the families living with HIV and AIDS.

Ms. WILKINSON: And people have now relocated into houses that are definitely identifiable as those people with HIV. And thats called a colony - an HIV/AIDS colony.

XAYKAOTHAO: But thats not how the Cambodian government sees it.

Mr. MANN CHHOEUN (Vice-Governor, Phnom Penh): This is a very deep generosity of our open municipality.

XAYKAOTHAO: Thats Phnom Penhs vice-governor, Mann Chhoeun. He switches now to the Khmer language.

Mr. CHHOEUN: (Through Translator) We are the government. We have governed these people for more than 30 years. We are not animals. We are the government and we do everything for the people.

XAYKAOTHAO: He says most of the families affected with HIV and AIDS from the Borequila settlement in the capital didnt have housing rights there. To help those families, he says, the government provided free land, built new homes and initially offered to buy two motorcycles for transportation needs and sewing machines for new businesses.

Mr. CHHOEUN: (Through Translator) Frankly speaking, honestly, if these people were selling food or fruit on the street and you knew they had HIV, you might not buy from them and you might discriminate against them.

XAYKAOTHAO: Thats why, he said, the families shouldve accepted sewing machines, which wouldve helped some of them find a new livelihood. Instead, Vice Governor Mann Chhoeun said the families each asked for $250 in cash. They received this along with a bag of rice, bottles of soy and fish sauce and plastic water jugs on the day of the relocation.

Dr. SAVINA AMMASSARI (Acting Country Coordinator, UNAIDS, Phnom Penh): In general, the U.N. has been deeply disappointed that the relocation has finally taken place.

XAYKAOTHAO: That's Savina Ammassari, acting country coordinator for UNAIDS in Phnom Penh.

Dr. AMMASSARI: We have worked up to the very last moment in order to urge municipal authorities to at least postpone the relocation of these families, until the relocation had been upgraded and had met higher standard.

XAYKAOTHAO: Last year, when M�decins sans Fronti�res surveyed Tuol Sambo, they found that the resettlement housing did not meet minimum standards for emergency shelter. Ammassari says UNAIDS is working with NGOs and the municipal authorities to find a better solution to this issue.

Dr. AMMASSARI: It's not only an HIV issue, eviction also goes far beyond the HIV issue. It affects, unfortunately, often the poorest amongst the poorest. And that is where we all need to join efforts in providing support to these families.

XAYKAOTHAO: Back at the HIV/AIDS community in Tuol Sambo, Kathleen O'Keefe, an independent consultant on land rights and HIV/AIDS issues, has just finished visiting with families. On this windy day, she looks across at the green structures that house them and says...

Ms. KATHLEEN O'KEEFE (Independent Consultant): A group of HIV people do not have to be discriminated against if they live in dignity, if they have education, if they have a job and they're respected, and they can integrate themselves in the community. But a community like this will be discriminated against.

XAYKAOTHAO: More than a hundred international HIV/AIDS and social justice groups have sent a letter to Cambodia's government, describing what they said were dangerous conditions in the defacto AIDS colony. Human Rights Watch said people living with HIV have compromised immune systems, and for them substandard conditions can mean a death sentence.

For NPR News Im Doualy Xaykaothao.

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