PHNOM PENH, May 29 (AFP) - Svat has been injecting heroin, or in its absence methamphetamine, for three to seven times a day over the past year with his "street friends" under a bridge in Phnom Penh.
The sickly 19-year-old forms part of a new category of teenagers and children who have appeared on the streets of the Cambodian capital in increasing numbers over the past two years: children who have a home to go to.
On occasions, Svat returns home to his parents, whom he also steals from when he is too weak to rob a passerby.
Like Svat, more and more urban young people from families with regular incomes -- defined as "middle-class" in Cambodian terms -- are taking to the streets, organisations dealing with the problem said in the lead-up to International Children's Day on Sunday.
Poverty and family conflicts have long pushed impoverished Cambodia's children onto the streets, but the growing AIDS problem and drug addiction is contributing to a worsening situation.
AIDS began decimating families, including those climbing the ranks of society, due to the high cost of health care and then the deaths themselves.
"Forty percent of the new cases we identify are touched by AIDS," said Sebastien Marot, coordinator of non-government organisation Friends, which cares for around 1,800 children on Phnom Penh's streets.
The number of Cambodian AIDS orphans is currently estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, according to Cambodia's National AIDS Authority. That number is expected to soar to more than 140,000 by 2005.
Others on the streets have been lured there as a combined result of their addiction to drugs and a lack of parental discipline.
"Sometimes very comfortable families knock on all the doors and don't know what to do," said Sokhoun Pin, a teacher working with Friends.
Graham Shaw, from the UN's Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention office here, said some parents make a bid to rescue their children.
"Certain parents apply to the anti-drugs police force and make official complaints against their child so that they are locked up for a few months or in detention for a few days," he said.
Frequently, however, some parents disown their children via local publications, showing their photographs and publicly condemning their deviant behaviour.
Tolah, 16, shows the track-marked arms of a heroin addict, the result of a three-year addiction financed with the help of his friends and petty theft.
In the recesses of their rubbish-filled squat, he and his friends shoot-up, injecting a shot from a syringe over 30 minutes "to make the pleasure last", says Tolah as he is watched by his 12-year-old brother, who joined the squat three months ago.
Each day, Tolah spends a minimum of four dollars on his drug habit, a large sum in a city where the average monthly wage is around 40 dollars.
But from time to time he also returns home to his parents, abandoning his life of "freedom".
Heroin and methamphetamines are the drugs of choice for many, with the latter -- now produced in Cambodia -- growing in popularity among children, according to the UN's Shaw.
"Since 2001 methamphetamines are the subject of an active trade in schools," he said.
According to a survey by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), some street children turn to drugs trafficking to finance their addiction, making trips to and from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border, the point where most drugs flow into Cambodia.
Police have descended under Svat's bridge in recent days to disperse his gang, but "normally, nobody dares to approach them, not even police officers" says Friends' Amatak Ouch.
The street children are unafraid of police, knowing that their relatively wealthy families will be able to bail them out should they find themselves in trouble, he added.
On the street, the young "rich" often associate with the most miserable in Cambodian society through networks of petty crime, says Sun Kong Sith, of the Child Welfare Group, a collective of 25 NGOs.
The first, who are more difficult to approach, more arrogant and more mobile than the second, could precede, in his eyes, a possible explosion of urban violence.
Back under the bridge, the 30-centimetre blade of the knife lying beside Svat is glistening in the semi-darkness. With it, he extorts money and jewellery from those passing overhead, even if occasionally he must stab the blade into the recalcitrant ones.
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