Photographer Steff Gruber is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘MEAT, CAMBODIA’. To see Steff’s body of work, click on any image.

The heavily guarded and secret pig slaughterhouse is located in a residential area on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Due to a lack of modern technology, the animals are still killed here in a cruel, traditional way, as in most slaughterhouses in Cambodia. Although international organizations have repeatedly called for a reform of the practically non-existent animal protection in Cambodia in recent years, the situation has not changed to this day: the workers hit the pigs on the head with heavy metal pipes. The animals’ throats are then cut and they bleed to death, some of them still conscious. The dying pigs are dragged across the bloody concrete floor before being thrown into a vat of boiling water.

This method is not without physical and psychological effects on the workers, who work piecework from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. It is significant that their wages are measured by the cruelty of the work they perform in the sequence of slaughter. The cut through the throat is paid the most. The driving force for meat production is a rapidly increasing demand for meat in Cambodia and the tempting prospect of profit for the entrepreneurs.

The photo report is part of the photo series VANISHING CAMBODIA, which photographer Steff Gruber has been working on for several years and which deals with social changes in Cambodia.