One of the most common causes of abandonment/orphaning in Cambodia is HIV/AIDS. The other volunteer here has told me that it's the case for a lot of the kids that we have, and one of them even talked to me about it once. But basically, rural villages are extremely impoverished and having even just a little bit more money can make a huge difference in someone's life there. So often, the mother and children will stay behind while the father goes to the city to become a moto driver or security guard or something along those lines. While there, many would either get a mistress or a prostitute or something like that, and (though rates are much better now than before) a significant percentage of them would be infected with HIV. Then when they visit home, HIV would go from the father to the mother. Life expectancy with HIV is just a few years here.
What I thought was most interesting about the girl who talked to me about this, though, is how acutely aware she was that HIV is a disease only to the poor. She said, "Yeah, so they had HIV, both, but we didn't have any money so we couldn't pay for medicine, so they both died... if we had more money maybe they would still be alive." (If you don't believe me that it's a disease of the poor, I encourage you to
check this link out real quick)
Peace out.
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