Illness is the greatest cause of Cambodians losing their land, and development organizations aren’t doing enough to help them get it back, a new Oxfam report finds.
Over the past year, Oxfam went to 143 villages across the nation to study how many people have lost their land in rural Cambodia and why. The report also examines the impact development has had on displaced people.
“Illness plays a pre-eminent role in initiating families’ plunge into destitution and landlessness,” Oxfam says. According to the report, better health services will be essential in helping poor people keep their land.
This links the plight of the landless poor to another deep problem in Cambodia––that of health care in rural areas.
At least 85 percent of Cambodians live in the provinces, but only 13 percent of the nation’s health-care workers are there, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization. In the beginning of last year, the Ministry of Health budgeted roughly $3,900 for health care in the provinces.
Only about $553 was actually spent.
Landlessness has been on the rise in Cambodia since the 1980s the Oxfam report shows. The rate of landlessness in the villages Oxfam examined went from 2.93 percent in 1984 to more than quadruple that amount in 1999––12.28 percent.
Population growth complicates the land situation. The number of people in many villages is growing, but the amount of land stays the same. Each year, more and more people are crowded out, statistics suggest. In response to these data, Oxfam urges new efforts in population planning.
People returning to Cambodia from Thailand make up about 15 percent of people without land in the country. They often have a hard time getting land, and may have a hard time keeping it.
Agencies working to help returnees are not as effective as they should be, the report suggests. In one of the villages surveyed, 81 returning families had won land titles with the help of Lutheran World Service and UN Development Program-Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration Project.
Soon after, they were forced off their land by military officers and local authorities. The report says that protection and monitoring may be necessary in order for returnees to keep their land.
The Oxfam report further suggests that development organizations don’t pay enough attention to the landless poor. In 43 percent of rural development activities, there was little or no participation from the landless.
