For the past five days I have been mimicking the diet of the world’s hungry to raise awareness about poverty and chronic hunger. I have been eating around 1,000 calories, once a day in my evening meal, and focusing on the staple foods of the regions of the world hardest hit by food insecurity. The food has been delicious, but the portions are so small I’m hungry again by the time I go to sleep at night. Even though I have only been doing this for a few days, and I know it will be over soon, I feel sad and listless. I try to cheer myself up with the thought of the delicious meals I can eat as soon as this is over, but it is hard to focus on anything that isn’t immediate. Two days might as well be two years for how close it seems. My ability to focus on the task at hand faltered more often than not today, as I attempted to explore the role of violent conflict in creating chronic hunger and its effect in the nation of Cambodia.
Some people have scoffed at this world hunger journey, telling me that the amount of food isn’t really that minuscule, that I shouldn’t be feeling weak or hungry at all. But this amount of food is too small and I am feeling weak and hungry. All the time. As a food blogger I’m used to thinking about food constantly, planning my meals, writing recipes and joyfully relishing my most recent creation. But now my constant thoughts about food have turned bleak. It is a series of no, no, no, all day long, as I deny my hunger and try not to give in to near overwhelming temptation. And then, for a few far too short minutes every evening, all the synapses in my brain fire at once and every bit of the one simple meal I get to eat tastes like heaven. And then it is gone. It seems like I could count the number of bites taken on two hands. My spoon scrapes down the side of the bowl; I lick it again and again, as if waiting for more food to appear. Last night I was even dragging my fingers across the plate, trying to get every last bit of food I could. Inevitably the meal ends with me feeling frustrated. My body knows this is wrong and is sick of being ignored.
I am also sick of feeling weak and tired, too pale and empty to even climb the stairs without black stars appearing before my eyes. I am barely coping with this diet and I live a cushy, pampered existence. How people survive on these meager portions while doing back breaking labor from dawn to dusk, I do not know. That people live like this while knowing that their families, their children, their loved ones, are experiencing it too breaks my heart. 1 out of 6 people in our world are going hungry. Imagine that fact in your own life, with your own family and loved ones. Look around at six members of your family and imagine one of them starving to death while the rest of you enjoy your dinner. Look around at six of your friends and imagine one of them dying from hunger while you cook breakfast. If one of our family members was starving to death we wouldn’t stand for it, the situation would be remedied instantly with an outpouring of assistance and help. But because we in the global north live in a world where these 1.2 billion people are for the most part kept voiceless and hidden from sight, we do nothing.
For the past few days I have been sharing my experience and my research on the causes and potential solutions to the problem of world hunger, but I find I’m still struggling to cope with its magnitude. Logically I understand that 1.2 billion people are chronically undernourished, but actually coming to terms with the fact that 1 out of every 6 of my fellow human beings goes hungry every day has been difficult. And when I remind myself of the fact that there is more than enough food to feed everyone, it just doesn’t seem possible that a world could exist with so much blinding inequality. In an effort to see this crisis on a smaller scale, I have decided to spend my day devoted to examining hunger in Asia focused on one country in particular: Cambodia.
Asia and the Pacific are home to over half of the world’s population and nearly 2/3 of the world’s hungry people. There are 642 million people in Asia and the Pacific struggling with chronic hunger. Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia. This has earned it an Alarming rating by the Global Hunger Index, which ranks countries on the basis of a figure combining three factors: level of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality, and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. After decades of civil conflict and a brutal genocide, the Cambodian people are still struggling. 26% of the total population is undernourished, 35% of the population is living below the poverty line, with 15 – 20% living in extreme poverty. The population has been fractured by violence, generations of people are missing, multi-national corporations have swooped in to exploit the vulnerable poor, and the countryside is still filled with land mines, resulting in one of the highest percentages of disabled people in the world. Cambodia is a nation that has been through the worst and is now struggling to find its footing and thrive.
Just as chronic hunger can create conflict as people compete for resources, conflict and war can create chronic hunger. This happens as food is used as a weapon and a means to control the population, farmland and crops are destroyed either deliberately or accidentally, and farmers are displaced through violence or coercion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, armed conflict is the world’s leading cause of hunger.
“Since 1992, the proportion of short and long-term food crises that can be attributed to human causes has more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to more than 35 percent. All too often, these emergencies are triggered by conflicts.” World Food Program
This fact is evidenced in the tumultuous and bloody history of Cambodia and the resulting epidemic of hunger it now struggles with. After nearly a century of French colonization, Cambodia gained its independence in 1953. A little more than a decade later Cambodia found itself mired in the Vietnam War, and was bombed and invaded by Republic of Vietnam and U.S. forces. More than 2 million Cambodians were forced to flee their homes to avoid the violence and became war refugees. The extensive bombing killed thousands of people, and up to 75% of the country’s livestock, making it nearly impossible for the people to plant their annual rice crop. Famine took hold of the country, tens of thousands of people died, and it was in this context that the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and sent the people to work in the fields, determined to cast aside all modern progress and Western influence, and create an agrarian utopia emulating the 11th century.
Over a million Cambodians, 1 out of every 8 people, died under the Khmer Rouge through executions, overwork, starvation, or disease. The landmines that were used throughout the decades of conflict by all the various factions, have maimed and disabled more than 40,000 Cambodians. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) estimates that there are still up to six million mines and unexploded ordinances in Cambodia. In 1991 a comprehensive peace settlement was reached and the United Nations was given power to enforce a ceasefire. However, this violence fractured Cambodian society, killed entire generations of people, and set the nation’s progress back decades.
The International Food Policy Research Institute has named Cambodia one of the world’s 12 hunger hotspots to highlight the massive rate of food insecurity the country faces. The average life expectancy in Cambodia is only 56 years, with people dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases that have been virtually wiped out in much of the rest of the world. To this day people are being killed and maimed by the landmines that still litter the country, and at the current rate it may take another 100 years before all the mines are cleared from the Cambodian countryside. The Cambodian government estimates that only 29% of their citizens have access to safe drinking water. Only 57% of Cambodian women can read and write, and more than half of all children under the age of 14 are not attending school in order to work. This kind of poverty is difficult to overcome. It creates a legacy of hunger and impoverishment, passed down from generation to generation like an unwanted inheritance. I offer a quote from “World Hunger Notes”.
“After wars have destroyed natural and social resource bases, people must reform and rebuild communities, regain land titles, reconstruct waterworks, replant trees, and recruit seeds, animals, and tools to restore livelihoods. They must also reconcile hostilities and distrust that in some cases predate active fighting. None of these are quick turnarounds, and all contribute to continuing underproduction, poverty, malnutrition, and risk of renewed violence.” World Hunger.org
Once started the cycle of poverty can be hard to stop. With little or no resources it can be extremely difficult for a family to overcome the interlocking obstacles that stand in their way. Too many of us assume that simply fixing one part of the problem will cause the other challenges to dissolve and the road to a clear and prosperous future will be easy. For example, when faced with the previously mentioned statistic that more than half of Cambodian children under the age of 14 do not attend school but work instead, a common initial reaction is indignation that this is allowed to happen and a belief that the government should force the children to go to school for their own good. After all, investments in education pay off in the form of increased earnings later in life and a higher likelihood of education for any future children. However, a more nuanced examination will reveal that if those children stop earning a wage and are forced to go to school, it might mean disaster for their family. The money that the child was bringing in could have been the difference between life and death for a family struggling to find the means to survive. However, lack of education as a child is a key factor in determining whether or not someone will face poverty as an adult. Solving one part of the equation can make the situation even worse, but doing nothing nearly always guarantees that the future will repeat the past. Ending the cycle of poverty, therefore, requires a unique approach that recognizes the need for multilevel strategies with an emphasis on sustainability and empowerment.
As a woman from the wealthy global north, I know that at first glance it might seem like armed conflict in far flung corners of the globe has little do with me. But it most definitely does. Quite often these conflicts are supported by the governments of developed nations to further their own goals, or in other cases the violence is completely ignored by countries powerful enough to put a stop to it. We as citizens of these wealthy countries can demand action be taken to stop conflict. We can write to our governmental representatives, run for political office ourselves, create awareness groups, lobby for change, or stage protest demonstrations.
Other times, the products we buy in our day to day life, like our cell phones and laptop computers, fund these violent conflicts and create incentives for more violence to take place. They raw materials that make these products are collected in mines. There is a direct connection between what we buy and the brutal deaths of millions of people. In Congo, where violent conflict has been raging for years, do you know what the number one tool of choice to control the population is? Rape. And when we allow companies to use conflict minerals in the computers and cell phones we buy, we are subsidizing and supporting rape and widespread catastrophic violence.
This is a fantastic video exploring the link between what is in your home and devastating violence and rape epidemic taking place in Congo. Please watch this video and demand that these companies seek peaceful alternatives to the minerals they are using. Visit the website Raise Hope for Congo.org to make your voice heard and to protect and empower the women of Congo!
Some people have scoffed at this world hunger journey, telling me that the amount of food isn’t really that minuscule, that I shouldn’t be feeling weak or hungry at all. But this amount of food is too small and I am feeling weak and hungry. All the time. As a food blogger I’m used to thinking about food constantly, planning my meals, writing recipes and joyfully relishing my most recent creation. But now my constant thoughts about food have turned bleak. It is a series of no, no, no, all day long, as I deny my hunger and try not to give in to near overwhelming temptation. And then, for a few far too short minutes every evening, all the synapses in my brain fire at once and every bit of the one simple meal I get to eat tastes like heaven. And then it is gone. It seems like I could count the number of bites taken on two hands. My spoon scrapes down the side of the bowl; I lick it again and again, as if waiting for more food to appear. Last night I was even dragging my fingers across the plate, trying to get every last bit of food I could. Inevitably the meal ends with me feeling frustrated. My body knows this is wrong and is sick of being ignored.
I am also sick of feeling weak and tired, too pale and empty to even climb the stairs without black stars appearing before my eyes. I am barely coping with this diet and I live a cushy, pampered existence. How people survive on these meager portions while doing back breaking labor from dawn to dusk, I do not know. That people live like this while knowing that their families, their children, their loved ones, are experiencing it too breaks my heart. 1 out of 6 people in our world are going hungry. Imagine that fact in your own life, with your own family and loved ones. Look around at six members of your family and imagine one of them starving to death while the rest of you enjoy your dinner. Look around at six of your friends and imagine one of them dying from hunger while you cook breakfast. If one of our family members was starving to death we wouldn’t stand for it, the situation would be remedied instantly with an outpouring of assistance and help. But because we in the global north live in a world where these 1.2 billion people are for the most part kept voiceless and hidden from sight, we do nothing.
For the past few days I have been sharing my experience and my research on the causes and potential solutions to the problem of world hunger, but I find I’m still struggling to cope with its magnitude. Logically I understand that 1.2 billion people are chronically undernourished, but actually coming to terms with the fact that 1 out of every 6 of my fellow human beings goes hungry every day has been difficult. And when I remind myself of the fact that there is more than enough food to feed everyone, it just doesn’t seem possible that a world could exist with so much blinding inequality. In an effort to see this crisis on a smaller scale, I have decided to spend my day devoted to examining hunger in Asia focused on one country in particular: Cambodia.
Asia and the Pacific are home to over half of the world’s population and nearly 2/3 of the world’s hungry people. There are 642 million people in Asia and the Pacific struggling with chronic hunger. Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia. This has earned it an Alarming rating by the Global Hunger Index, which ranks countries on the basis of a figure combining three factors: level of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality, and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. After decades of civil conflict and a brutal genocide, the Cambodian people are still struggling. 26% of the total population is undernourished, 35% of the population is living below the poverty line, with 15 – 20% living in extreme poverty. The population has been fractured by violence, generations of people are missing, multi-national corporations have swooped in to exploit the vulnerable poor, and the countryside is still filled with land mines, resulting in one of the highest percentages of disabled people in the world. Cambodia is a nation that has been through the worst and is now struggling to find its footing and thrive.
Just as chronic hunger can create conflict as people compete for resources, conflict and war can create chronic hunger. This happens as food is used as a weapon and a means to control the population, farmland and crops are destroyed either deliberately or accidentally, and farmers are displaced through violence or coercion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, armed conflict is the world’s leading cause of hunger.
“Since 1992, the proportion of short and long-term food crises that can be attributed to human causes has more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to more than 35 percent. All too often, these emergencies are triggered by conflicts.” World Food Program
This fact is evidenced in the tumultuous and bloody history of Cambodia and the resulting epidemic of hunger it now struggles with. After nearly a century of French colonization, Cambodia gained its independence in 1953. A little more than a decade later Cambodia found itself mired in the Vietnam War, and was bombed and invaded by Republic of Vietnam and U.S. forces. More than 2 million Cambodians were forced to flee their homes to avoid the violence and became war refugees. The extensive bombing killed thousands of people, and up to 75% of the country’s livestock, making it nearly impossible for the people to plant their annual rice crop. Famine took hold of the country, tens of thousands of people died, and it was in this context that the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and sent the people to work in the fields, determined to cast aside all modern progress and Western influence, and create an agrarian utopia emulating the 11th century.
Over a million Cambodians, 1 out of every 8 people, died under the Khmer Rouge through executions, overwork, starvation, or disease. The landmines that were used throughout the decades of conflict by all the various factions, have maimed and disabled more than 40,000 Cambodians. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) estimates that there are still up to six million mines and unexploded ordinances in Cambodia. In 1991 a comprehensive peace settlement was reached and the United Nations was given power to enforce a ceasefire. However, this violence fractured Cambodian society, killed entire generations of people, and set the nation’s progress back decades.
The International Food Policy Research Institute has named Cambodia one of the world’s 12 hunger hotspots to highlight the massive rate of food insecurity the country faces. The average life expectancy in Cambodia is only 56 years, with people dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases that have been virtually wiped out in much of the rest of the world. To this day people are being killed and maimed by the landmines that still litter the country, and at the current rate it may take another 100 years before all the mines are cleared from the Cambodian countryside. The Cambodian government estimates that only 29% of their citizens have access to safe drinking water. Only 57% of Cambodian women can read and write, and more than half of all children under the age of 14 are not attending school in order to work. This kind of poverty is difficult to overcome. It creates a legacy of hunger and impoverishment, passed down from generation to generation like an unwanted inheritance. I offer a quote from “World Hunger Notes”.
“After wars have destroyed natural and social resource bases, people must reform and rebuild communities, regain land titles, reconstruct waterworks, replant trees, and recruit seeds, animals, and tools to restore livelihoods. They must also reconcile hostilities and distrust that in some cases predate active fighting. None of these are quick turnarounds, and all contribute to continuing underproduction, poverty, malnutrition, and risk of renewed violence.” World Hunger.org
Once started the cycle of poverty can be hard to stop. With little or no resources it can be extremely difficult for a family to overcome the interlocking obstacles that stand in their way. Too many of us assume that simply fixing one part of the problem will cause the other challenges to dissolve and the road to a clear and prosperous future will be easy. For example, when faced with the previously mentioned statistic that more than half of Cambodian children under the age of 14 do not attend school but work instead, a common initial reaction is indignation that this is allowed to happen and a belief that the government should force the children to go to school for their own good. After all, investments in education pay off in the form of increased earnings later in life and a higher likelihood of education for any future children. However, a more nuanced examination will reveal that if those children stop earning a wage and are forced to go to school, it might mean disaster for their family. The money that the child was bringing in could have been the difference between life and death for a family struggling to find the means to survive. However, lack of education as a child is a key factor in determining whether or not someone will face poverty as an adult. Solving one part of the equation can make the situation even worse, but doing nothing nearly always guarantees that the future will repeat the past. Ending the cycle of poverty, therefore, requires a unique approach that recognizes the need for multilevel strategies with an emphasis on sustainability and empowerment.
As a woman from the wealthy global north, I know that at first glance it might seem like armed conflict in far flung corners of the globe has little do with me. But it most definitely does. Quite often these conflicts are supported by the governments of developed nations to further their own goals, or in other cases the violence is completely ignored by countries powerful enough to put a stop to it. We as citizens of these wealthy countries can demand action be taken to stop conflict. We can write to our governmental representatives, run for political office ourselves, create awareness groups, lobby for change, or stage protest demonstrations.
Other times, the products we buy in our day to day life, like our cell phones and laptop computers, fund these violent conflicts and create incentives for more violence to take place. They raw materials that make these products are collected in mines. There is a direct connection between what we buy and the brutal deaths of millions of people. In Congo, where violent conflict has been raging for years, do you know what the number one tool of choice to control the population is? Rape. And when we allow companies to use conflict minerals in the computers and cell phones we buy, we are subsidizing and supporting rape and widespread catastrophic violence.
This is a fantastic video exploring the link between what is in your home and devastating violence and rape epidemic taking place in Congo. Please watch this video and demand that these companies seek peaceful alternatives to the minerals they are using. Visit the website Raise Hope for Congo.org to make your voice heard and to protect and empower the women of Congo!
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