1. The document discusses the plight of over 1,500 stateless ethnic Vietnamese families living in floating villages in Cambodia's Kampong Chhnang province. Despite having lived in Cambodia for generations, they are denied citizenship due to their Vietnamese ethnicity. 2. Without citizenship, the families have no land rights, access to education, or ability to vote. They live in precarious floating homes and make a living through fishing. However, overfishing and environmental threats endanger their livelihoods and food security. 3. The document calls on the Cambodian government to grant citizenship to these long-term residents as required by law, in order to allow families stability and opportunities to improve their situation through education

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Trip to Kampong Chhnang
25-26 April, 2016
Leah Breevoort and Gabe Hendin
It is difficult to comprehend the idea of statelessness. What does it mean to belong to no one, to
have no official home, nationality, or citizenship? You are forced to abide by all the laws of a
country, but in the event of danger or disaster, to whom can you turn? No one.
In the Kampong Chhnang province, at the
southern tip of Tonle Sap Lake, more
than 1,500 families have been
experiencing this sense of limbo for
generations. Most of them were born in
Cambodia and some even have lineage
dating back to the French Protectorate
(1867–1953). However, because they are
ethnically Vietnamese, the local
authorities refuse to issue them the
appropriate documents to become citizens. Without citizenship, their entire way of life is
vulnerable to political corruption and environmental instability.
MIRO recently traveled to Kandal village, a floating refuge from the anti-Vietnamese rhetoric
that pervades the larger cities (politicians claim the Vietnamese migration is a predatory action),
and interviewed two ethnic Vietnamese residents. Departing from the banks of Kampong
Chhnang City, Deputy Director of MIRO Noun Sovanrith and MIRO interns Leah Breevoort,
Gabe Hendin, and Laura Welsch embarked on a small, rickety, wooden sampan owned by a local
fisherman. It swayed back and forth during the 20-minute ride to the first interviewee’s home on
the murky brown water of Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, as an elderly
Vietnamese woman who was part of the boat’s “crew” continuously scooped out incoming water
to prevent the vessel from flooding.

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Upon arrival, MIRO was warmly welcomed inside a house that looked much like a modest home
you would find built on land, with wooden siding, shuttered windows, and a thatched roof.
Except this house was floating on bundles of bamboo in the middle of a lake. To simply borrow
a cup of sugar from your neighbors
would require hopping in a large metal
bowl and paddling your way to the
nearest doorstep. But these are the
circumstances to which much of the
Vietnamese community in Cambodia is
accustomed. It is impossible to ignore
the resourcefulness of these Vietnamese
who have accomplished an impressive
feat of survival and adaptation to their
environment. Faced with severe oppression and hardship, they found a way to reestablish their
communities, even creating floating temples and mobile convenience shops on boats. It is the
only way of life they know, making a living off of fishing, boat mechanics, and building and
repairing the nearly 1,500 houses in the community.
Life for the Vietnamese in Cambodia has historically been a struggle. In MIRO’s first interview,
the host recounted how when the Khmer Rouge held power, he was traded to Vietnam in
exchange for salt, as they equated his humanity to the value of a simple commodity. While his
narrative naturally differs in some ways from that of his fellow villagers’, it contains a common
thread: he is a stateless Vietnamese person who is denied citizenship in Cambodia despite being
born here and having lived here for the majority of his life. He is denied citizenship solely
because of his Vietnamese identity. As the Khmer Rouge spread anti-Vietnamese vitriol during
their time in power, both of the interviewees were forced to flee from their homes to Vietnam, a
country completely foreign to them, or face death. But Vietnam would also not grant these
refugees citizenship, and for them, living in a foreign land was impossible. Under a communist
regime, without the support of a community, and lacking a familiarity of their surroundings, the
Khmer Vietnamese struggled to find work. One woman proclaimed, “We’d rather die in

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Cambodia than die from starvation in Vietnam.” As a result, many Vietnamese began to return to
Cambodia in the early 1980s following the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
Today, the ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia face two major problems: statelessness and
environmental collapse. Their statelessness leaves them paralyzed, unable to find more stable
employment, send their children to state schools, or apply for land permits. The closest private
school is too far away for the Vietnamese children of the floating villages, and because there is
no adequate and affordable transportation, the vast majority of kids do not receive a basic
education. Their parents cannot vote to change the gross misconduct that denies them citizenship
despite the fact that they were born here, a stipulation of citizenship under the Cambodian Law
of Nationality:
Shall obtain Khmer nationality/citizenship by being born in Cambodia:
Any child who was born from a foreign mother and father (parents) who were born and
living legally in Cambodia (or) any child who was born from an unknown mother or
father (a parent) and a newly born child who is found in Cambodia, shall be considered as
having been born also in Cambodia. (Chapter 2, Article 4)
As stateless individuals, these communities can be forced to move without prior justification
from the government, which is precisely what occurred in October 2015. A mass, forced eviction
uprooted thousands of ethnic Vietnamese families from an area with access to a privately funded
Vietnamese school, surrounded by deep water ideal for fishing, and close to the marketplace for
selling fish. At the new location three miles
upstream, the average depth of water was
insufficient for raising fish and far from the
Kampong Chhnang City center, destabilizing
the community’s economy. Families could no
longer afford the increased transportation fee
for school, so the majority of children
dropped out without hopes of ever receiving
an education. All part of the government’s

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five-year plan to “beautify” the riverfront, the move became a massive disruption to the
economic growth of the Vietnamese community, forcing them to restart their lives without any
compensation.
The sustainability of the floating villages is in jeopardy and MIRO’s interviewees worry about
the futures of their families. Even if the issue of statelessness were to be resolved, a larger threat
looms just below the surface, threatening not just the Vietnamese, but the food security of
millions. While there is some carpentry and
metalworking in the villages, the staple
profession is undoubtedly fishing. But one look at
the brown water filled with refuse clearly tells a
sad story. Under each floating Vietnamese house
lives a delicate ecosystem that is slowly
collapsing from decades of overfishing, climate
change, and dam construction. About 60 percent
of Cambodia’s inland fish catch comes from
Tonle Sap Lake and fish account for three-
quarters of the animal protein consumed in a
country where nearly 40 percent of children are
chronically malnourished. “If the Tonle Sap Lake
does not function, then the whole fishery of the
Mekong will collapse,” says Chheng Phen,
director of Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute. While the
Vietnamese have no control over drought climates or hydroelectric dams being built farther
upstream, they are partly responsible for overfishing. For three months out of the year,
commercial fishing becomes illegal in order to give the fish populations a chance to reproduce
and grow. During this time, family fishing is allowed using smaller nets and less invasive
equipment. But many residents continue to fish illegally, asserting that they need the larger
quantities to feed their families.

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If the Vietnamese fishing communities, like the visited in Kampong Chhnang, are not reeducated
to use smarter fishing techniques, the ecosystem on which they depend will continue to collapse.
When that happens, the communities will be left without food, and for many, without an income.
Unable to obtain citizenship and legally buy land, they will have nowhere to go to make a new
living. The Cambodian government must take the initiative to grant citizenship to those that are
legal residents, having been born here or living here for more than seven years. Vietnamese who
have citizenship can send their children to school, buy land, learn agricultural techniques, and
become productive members of society. If the government continues to act in these negligent
ways, it will continue to drown these communities in poverty, sentencing them to a life of daily
survival in the floating villages. Something needs to give and it will not be the will of the
Vietnamese living in Cambodia. They believe in Cambodia’s ability to provide them with a
better life and in their potential to improve Cambodia. Cambodia should believe in them too.