horrendous scam in Siem Reap: milk powder scam

I would like to bring to your attention a scam that frequently takes place in Siem Reap and of which it would be of importance for anyone travelling to Cambodia to be aware of.

Earlier this year, I spent 5 weeks in Siem Reap and on my first night, I encountered the following:
A young teenage girl approached me with a nearly unconscious baby on her arm. She had a desperate look in her eyes, clamped my arm and said ‘no money, just milk for my baby’. Usually I’m more sceptical, but in this case I did not think twice and went into the supermarket to buy her the 8 dollar milk powder. In the following days I kept seeing the same scene and witnessed many tourists buying the milk powder, and I started wondering if I did the right thing.

After talking to people who have been living in Siem Reap longer, this is what I found out:
The milk powder is not used to feed the baby. They have an agreement with the supermarkets with allows them to sell the milk powder back and both they and the supermarkets make a profit of it. This is not the worst part. The ‘mothers’ are part of a bigger (mafia-like) organization. The babies are not their own babies, but are babies from the villages (there are different theories on how these babies end up in this situation). These babies are drugged to make them look drowsy. These drugs have detrimental consequences for the babies bodies, if they even survive their first years.

The Cambodian government does not seem interested in intervening and people who have directly tried to warn tourists have been threatened. Only if tourists stop buying the milk powder, it will take away any motive to take the babies, drug them, and have them out on the streets for hours. Therefore, I want to urge to not participate in this and to spread the news, so as many people as possible will know about this. Hopefully, together, we can stop or at least diminish this horrendous practice.

Here is some additional information on this topic:
http://www.movetocambodia.com/siem-reap/cambodia-scams-the-powdered-milk-scam/

This one has been going on all over the world for decades...I remember stories about this in my own city in Italy (involving Roma mothers and children) from many years ago.

Anyway...good to remind people of the reality........

Obviously, the moral economics of Third-World tourism are complicated, but I would like to point out a few things:

• There is no reason to believe these babies are drugged. Drugs aren't free and neither are babies. Paying money for one to endanger the other doesn't sound like a smart business move. You carry a baby around for a few hours, it will start to loll its head sleepily.
• There is no evidence of a "baby mafia". If I were an unscrupulous criminal who had control of a few teenaged Cambodian girls, I could probably cook up a more profitable scheme than scamming tourists for baby formula. What seems more likely is that a poor girl borrows or rents a baby for the night and makes an arrangement with a grocer.
• The only reason this scam happens at all is because tourists have convinced themselves that cash donations are worse somehow than in-kind donations. Where this hallucination comes from, I don't know.
• Equally hallucinatory is the idea that if you don't donate, the beggars will give up +and go to school.+ No, it's far, far more likely that if people don't donate, they will be forced into another line of work, most likely prostitution or thievery.

Yes it's a well documented scam. The allegations that the babies are drugged has been made many times. Friends International have investigated this rumour and could find no concrete evidence to back it up. Not quite the same as denying it happens I guess. http://www.friends-international.org/blog/index.php/the-milk-of-human-kindness-the-siem-reap-baby-milk-scam/

Congrats to Malvolio for hitting all of the nails on the head. This type of hysterical post of righteous indignation by op belongs on tripadvisor.com where middle class visitors to Cambodia have their joyous splurge ruined by contemporary social issues. The only part of op's post which hints at the problem is, 'The Cambodian government does not seem interested in intervening..._" Sadly op wants them to intervene on the tourist's behalf instead of finding a solution to the problem that the govt. and their wealthy fiends have created.

Again malvolio is correct in saying "Obviously, the moral economics of Third-World tourism are complicated," but to place the blame on the impoverished disenfranchised segment of society is to miss the point. Welcome to the third world poster!