A de facto AIDS colony in Tuol Sambo, Cambodia is a gross violation of human rights. The country’s government has been urged by more than 100 international organizations and experts to ‘immediately stop sending HIV-affected families there.’ These concerned groups have also asked the Cambodian government for immediate action on improving the living conditions of infected people in the AIDS colony composed of some twenty families which had earlier been evicted forcibly from their homes in Phnom Penh and relocated to the colony due to their HIV infection.
The new location has left people with HIV without access to health facilities. They are also cut off from their sources of income based on street vending, garbage collection, and construction. They also do not have money to buy food. The colony or village is a showcase of apartheid and a clear offshoot of the AIDS stigma.
Most importantly, they have no means to procure their AIDS medicine, although the Cambodian government is compelled to ensure the provision of anti-retrovirals.
According to Doctors Without Borders, life in Tuol Sambo makes the health status of patients even worse because the place does not even reach the minimum living conditions of a refugee camp. The well is contaminated and the water is used only for washing clothes. The residents use gathered rainwater for drinking.
A cable from the electricity grid and a water well are the only services that are divided into six wards of a dozen houses of ten square meters. The heat is also a problem. Galvanized sheets comprise the interior walls of the houses, making the dwellings a veritable oven.
Since Tuol Sambo is a rice paddy, crabs and frogs caught in the rice fields accompany their staple food of boiled rice.
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