30 JUNE 2006 - PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: The children of brick factory workers in a hut at a brick factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This particular factory employs about 30 people. The live on the premises with their families. Most of the workers migrated to Phnom Penh from the countryside looking for better paying jobs than they could find in the countryside. According the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, there are more than 70 brick factories in Phnom Penh and its environs. Environmentalists are concerned that the factories, most of which burn wood in their kilns, contribute to deforestation in Cambodia. They are encouraging factory owners to switch to burning rice husks, as brick kilns in neighboring Vietnam do. The brick factories are kept busy feeding Phnom Penh's nearly insatiable appetite for building materials as the city is in the midst of a building boom brought by on economic development and the need for new office complexes and tourist hotels. Photo by Jack Kurtz / ZUMA Press
Add to Lightbox Download