Vietnam: Street
Children at Risk Before APEC Summit
Police Roundups in Hanoi Land Children in Harsh Detention Centers
Human Rights Watch
November 13,
2006
(New York, November 13, 2006) - Government roundup campaigns to clear Hanoi's
streets of "wanderers" and "vagrants" are landing street children in detention
centers, where some are beaten and subject to other forms of abuse, Human Rights
Watch said in a report released today.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that street children are particularly vulnerable
to arrest now, as the Vietnamese government attempts to present its best face
for this week's meetings in Hanoi of world leaders, including US President
George Bush, for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
"Vietnamese authorities need to protect street children from abuse, not condemn
them to further harm by throwing them into detention centers," said Sophie
Richardson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "Visiting world leaders
should press Vietnam to uphold basic rights and freedoms."
Vietnam should abide by its commitments to protect children under the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially children deemed especially
vulnerable to abuse, Human Rights Watch said. Vietnam was the first country in
Asia and the second in the world to ratify the treaty.
The 77-page report, "Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in
Detention," documents cases of serious violations of the rights of street
children in Hanoi. Police routinely round up street children in arbitrary sweeps
and deposit them at state "rehabilitation" centers - euphemistically called
"Social Protection Centers" - where they are detained for periods ranging from
two weeks to as much as six months.
Drawing on testimonies from street children interviewed over the past three
years, Human Rights Watch detailed the particularly harsh treatment at one of
the rehabilitation centers, Dong Dau Social Protection Center. Children there
are locked up in filthy, overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes
together with adults, with only a bucket for excrement. The lights remain on
night and day. They are released for two half-hour periods per day to wash and
to eat. They are offered no rehabilitation, no educational and recreational
activities, and no medical or psychological treatment. Their families are often
not notified about where they are.
Even more disturbing are reports that children at Dong Dau are subject to
routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff.
"Staff members in the so-called rehabilitation center have slapped and punched
children, and beat them with rubber truncheons," said Richardson. "Children
report being placed in isolation, deprived of food and medical treatment, and
denied family contact. This violates both Vietnamese and international law."
After being beaten, the children rarely receive medical treatment for their
injuries, nor are staff persons who carry out the beatings disciplined.
"Rather than serving as a rehabilitation center, Dong Dau is a de facto jail,"
said Richardson. "Upon release, the children return battered, bruised and even
less well-equipped to survive on the streets of Hanoi."
None of the children Human Rights Watch spoke to were provided any legal
representation or told what, if any, charges were being brought against them;
nor did their cases go before a court of law.
Officially, the government's policy is to round up street children in order to
reunite them with their families. In practice, staff members at Dong Dau rarely
make an effort to link children with their families or even notify the families
about their children's whereabouts.
At the end of their detention, efforts are rarely made to take the children home
or reunite them with their families. Instead, the children told Human Rights
Watch that they are deposited at the gates of the center - more than 20 miles
from Hanoi - and expected to find their way back. Most do not return to their
homes in the countryside, but end up in Hanoi with no new alternatives.
Although Vietnamese law outlines policies and programs to assist street children
- most of whom are poor children from the countryside who go to Hanoi to find
work - Human Rights Watch found that government authorities are often doing the
opposite of what is called for in Vietnamese and international law.
"On paper, Vietnam has good policies to protect street children," said
Richardson. "But the reality for Hanoi's street children is not rehabilitation,
but institutionalization and abuse, which leaves children in even worse shape."
Human Rights Watch called for an independent audit of conditions and practices
at Dong Dau and for development of a plan of action to halt abuses there. In
addition, Human Rights Watch recommended that the Vietnamese government put in
place systems to protect children from arbitrary arrest and detention and ensure
that street children do not suffer abuse at the hands of government authorities.
Centers for street children should meet international standards, promote
rehabilitation and family reunification (when appropriate), and provide adequate
education and health care.
Testimonies from the report:
"I didn't know how to queue when I first arrived. The guards came and hit me
with a rubber club. They hit me everywhere ... more than 20 times, on the right
side of my back, lower and upper arms. It still hurts. Then they sent me back to
the room without food. It was too painful to eat anyway. My back and right
shoulder were swollen. I had scratches all over my arms. ... I didn't eat for
two days - it was too painful to eat."
- 17-year-old street child
"When I had to fill out the form, [the staff person] asked me how many times I
had been there. I told him twice, but he thought I was lying. He thought I must
have been there four times. I told him he was wrong, so he hit me. He used a
rubber club to hit me all over my body. He hit me twice on the back and
shoulder, and twice on the back of my thighs."
- 15-year-old street child
"On the first day, eight people [were sent to Dong Dau] with me. We were all
very sad. Some people cried all day, and they didn't eat anything. When I was
lining up for dinner, I didn't feel like eating anything, so I was moving
slowly. So were the others. The guards came and made us kneel down in the middle
of the room. We weren't allowed to eat anything. The first time we got to eat
was the next day at 10 a.m."
- 15-year-old shoe shiner
"There were windows, but they were shut ... tied with metallic string. Day and
night was the same because the light was on all the time. There were some wooden
surfaces to sleep on but there were not enough, so people who were there first
got those. Others slept on the floor. We had just enough space to lie down. I
couldn't even turn my body. Staying there for one day is like staying there for
one month. We just sat in the room. We couldn't do anything."
- 17-year-old street child, talking about his detention at Dong Dau when he was
16
"I was always depressed, sad, bored. Many nights, I was lying on my bed,
thinking how it's so unfair to be somewhere like this. I don't deserve it. There
shouldn't be any violence in a Social Protection Center."
- 15-year-old street child
"Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention" is available
at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/vietnam1106/
For further information, please contact:
In London, Brad Adams: +44-20-7713-2767; or +44-79-0872-8333 (mobile)
In New York, Sophie Richardson: +1-212-216-1257; or +1-917-721-7473 (mobile)