The rights organization Licadho is preparing gifts to be distributed to children in prisons, as Cambodia prepares to celebrate Child Labor Day, June 1.
In conducting a campaign called "Children in Prison: No Place to Grow Up," Licadho said it was seeking to raise child inmates, some of them incarcerated, some of them living with their imprisoned mothers, who are often overlooked and lack education and health care.
"Even if the children want to attend schools, if the mothers are destitute, they have no possibility to pay the fees so their children can go to school," said Licadho prison project program coordinator Chin Lida.
Across 15 prisons, Cambodia has more than 579 young prisoners and 42 children who live with inmate mothers.
Children of inmate mothers are forced to live off leftover food, Chin Lida said.