Unscrupulous parents use their own children to beg for them

“There’s a sucker born every minute!” That statement has been attributed to P.T. Barnum, the ‘American Circus Tycoon’ of the 19th century. Barnum would put, what people of that day referred to as “Freaks”, on display for money. Some were genuine quirks and misfortunes of nature, like two headed animals, and some fabricated, or embellished, like the “Mermaid”, which was an object comprising the torso and head of a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish, covered in paper-mâché.

The children pictured above are abused Cambodian children, and we cannot do anything about it. They have parents that purposely keep them this way to beg for money at a border crossing where rich foreigners come to gamble at the casinos. It breaks your heart, and it makes the unscrupulous parents, and the corrupt officials who protect their parental rights, rich. The more you help, the deeper you entrench the problem. We’ve heard valid reports of children being deliberately disfigured to enhance their begging ability. I hope it makes you sick. It does me. It needs to stop, and that’s going to take good governance.