The Snake Harvester Children of Cambodia
Credits: Cambodia Daily Life Youtube Channel
In this rural town in Khmer, Cambodia, two children were
caught in video harvesting snakes in the field. These children harvest wild
snakes as a source of income in order to help their family.
Initially, the young boy found himself in a dangerous
predicament with what seems to be a kind of python. When a python catches its
prey, it grabs the prey by its teeth and anchor itself so that it can wrap its
long muscular body, squeezing and crushing its prey until the prey is
immobilized, unjured and unable to breethe. This is what the young boy was
being subjected to. As seen in the video, the python seemed to have anchored
itself on the boy's body and wrapped itself around it. Fortunately, with the
help of the older girl, the young boy escaped, seemingly unharmed and even
unfazed.
Then the two children continued on their burden of catching
more snakes. Later in the video, both children caught more snakes while digging
through the dikes of a rice field. Their effort yields to the capture of
another snake. The girl seems afraid of the snake, perhaps because it is
poisonous, and drops it on the ground. The boy then later retrieves it, and
plays with it a little before putting it inside a yellow bag.
This is the plight of the Khmer children and their families.
Children are forced by their situation in life into the dangerous responsibility
of harvesting snakes. The snakes that they catch are either sold or cooked. The
snakes are harvested for their skin, many serve as crocodile feed and the rest
are cooked or dry-roasted for later.
The indiscriminate harvest of wild snakes in Cambodia takes
its toll on many snake species. About 4 million specimens are collected and
killed annually. Accordingly, snake numbers are diminishing.
