Orphan boy lives in garbage dump

CNN)--He doesn't know how old he is, but he thinks he's 7. His name is Khin Zaw Lin. He's lived in a garbage dump virtually his entire life.
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Lin is one of about 300 refugees in the dump who survive on other people's trash. Many are children. Some are women with babies.

Their daily routine follows the same pattern: They mill about the dump, waiting for the next truck to arrive, hoping for enough discarded food to get them through the day.

Lin pokes through the rubbish with a machete. He says he collects bottles and plastic for three cents a sack. He shows me his feet, which were filthy and ribbed with cuts.

He tells me through an interpreter that he can't afford shoes. He walks barefoot through the treacherous landscape.
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Lin is one of about 300 refugees in the dump who survive on other people's trash. Many are children. Some are women with babies.

Their daily routine follows the same pattern: They mill about the dump, waiting for the next truck to arrive, hoping for enough discarded food to get them through the day.

Lin pokes through the rubbish with a machete. He says he collects bottles and plastic for three cents a sack. He shows me his feet, which were filthy and ribbed with cuts.

He tells me through an interpreter that he can't afford shoes. He walks barefoot through the treacherous landscape.
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Lin gives the money to his adopted mother. She tells me that Lin's biological mother gave him to her in Myanmar when he was a baby because she couldn't cope with the responsibility.

Life under the military junta in Myanmar can be brutal. The country's economy is collapsing, and torture and rape under the country's military regime is commonplace. Lin's new mother decided to flee to Thailand in search of a better life. She found a garbage dump instead.

Still, she says scavenging for food in the dump is actually an improvement on her previous life.

As I listen to Lin's story, a question keeps going through my mind: How can a 7-year-old spend his entire childhood in this squalor? Video Watch as Lin and others root through the dump »

Perhaps it's because Lin is invisible -- he doesn't have a passport or papers. He is part of special group of refugees from Myanmar that don't officially exist.
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Near the end of my meeting with Lin, I ask his adopted mother if she, and Lin, would ever escape the rubbish dump.
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Her answer is as hard as the world she and Lin inhabit.

"Never."