Seeing child labor first hand in Phnom Penh

I'm in Cambodia, traveling for work. In my first two days I have visited a shelter for children survivors of sex trafficking and rape and a center where former street children live. In both cases, these shelter are medium term -12 to 18 months- and children will be reintegrated with their families, in their communities. I have had a hard time dealing with my feelings, or lack thereof, when visiting these centers. I became quite professional, asking the right questions, thinking about theory of change, and not being able to make the connection between what I read about what these children have experienced with them in the shelters. That is quite confusing.

But then yesterday night as my colleague and I were enjoying a drink on the terrace of a restaurant, we saw a little working girls (selling bracelets) pass by. A man followed her and slapped her lightly on the back of the head. I yelped "HEY!" and then stopped myself because what could I say? I don't speak the man's language. The little girl started crying and looking at the man like she wanted to punch him. He just looked at her and at other kids who seemed to be working for him. The girl soon left with 2 of her friends, who were also selling bracelets. My colleague and I just sat and felt so very powerless. What the heck could we do? Tell the man he's an a**shole in a language he doesn't understand? Hug the little girl, who doesn't know me and probably doesn't need this from me? Tell the police, who are corrupted like crazy and wouldn't do anything or actually would harm the child (the government has a "sweeping" policy toward children who sell in the streets and they tend to put these youth in jail cells rather than help them)? It was so tough being confronted with this situation.

I know not to buy from these kids because it encourages trafficking. But what do you do when one of these children is hurt physically and emotionally in front of you? I'm still unsettled about this and feel like I failed somehow as a human and a child protection worker.

This is when I wish I had more practice in this sector. Theory is awesome (more community-based care, change the systems, no direct benefits, etc) but when you're confronted with issues in situ, it's a different story. And since my organization is Christian, shouldn't we follow Christ and do both community strengthening AND perform "miracles" (aka helping people when and where they suffer, even though that's not sustainable in the long term)? Sorry I know this is super programmatic/technical. I'm just feeling so unsettled about this experience, my own lack of experience and knowledge (aka my usual feelings that I am fraud in this job, even though I love it and enjoy it greatly and know in my head that I am doing ok), and my overall feelings about the aid world, its cynicism, and the responsibilities I have during this trip -bunch of project redesigns to talk about and a mid-term evaluation report coming up. SO much to process.

So on one hand I felt super disconnected during my visits to project (one friend said that seeing people in a safe environment is obviously less emotional than seeing them in the situation in which they hurt, which is spot on) and on the other hand I cannot get over yesterday's situation where my job and real life smashed into one another with a bang.

Sorry this is long. I am processing as I am writing. More soon- hopefully less confusing posts!