Vietnam's tougher reform measures put prostitutes, drug users into camps
BA VI - It's the second time Dang Thuy Quynh has
been sent to this government rehabilitation camp for prostitutes
and drug users. This time she says she will ask to stay longer
when her one-year term ends.
"I was a drug addict, and I'm afraid if I go back to the city it will
be very easy to become addicted again," she said.
The last time she was released, Quynh, 20, had no job and went
back to work in a brothel, despite knowing she was infected with
the AIDS virus. She says she's happy now in Ba Vi, 40 miles
away from her former life in Hanoi.
"I don't want to spread this disease to other people," she said.
But Quynh's chances of staying at the camp are slim because
Vietnam's government has decided to send each of the country's
130,000 known drug addicts to mandatory rehabilitation
programs over the next five years. That will crowd the country's
51 existing camps and require large amounts of money to build
and run new centers.
Local officials have been given the power to send suspected
prostitutes and drug users to rehabilitation centers without any
legal process.
The decision to impose compulsory treatment was made despite
extremely high relapse rates at Vietnam's current rehabilitation
centers. Ninety-seven percent of addicts in Hanoi are back on
drugs within five years of treatment, officials say. High failure rates
are common in other Asian countries as well.
The move signals that a fierce debate within the Communist
government over how to battle AIDS and drug addiction has
been won for now -- as in several other Southeast Asian
countries -- by those who favor a tough stance against prostitution
and drugs.
Experts had argued that harsh crackdowns drive drug use and
prostitution further underground, making it difficult to educate
people at high risk for AIDS and to conduct "harm reduction"
programs such as needle exchanges and condom distribution.
That could threaten progress achieved in the region in battling
AIDS in recent years, United Nations experts say.
" `Social evils' is all the rage now in Southeast Asia," said Jamie
Uhrig, an AIDS consultant based in Vietnam. "The problem is, it
doesn't work. Imprisoning people with addictions or those
involved in sex work does not seem to help public health."
Vietnam's government has conducted well-publicized raids on
discos and karaoke bars suspected of allowing drug use and
prostitution.
It also plans to send prostitutes' clients to "education courses" and
notify their families and bosses of their misdeeds. An estimated 70
percent of prostitutes' customers are government officials.
In Cambodia, where education and condom-promotion programs
have sharply reduced the region's highest HIV infection rate,
Prime Minister Hun Sen recently ordered the closure of all bars
and nightclubs, saying they encouraged violence and drug use.
In Thailand, which also brought down its HIV infection rate with
AIDS education and condom distribution programs in brothels,
the government has reversed a permissive policy toward the sex
industry and is shutting down bars that stay open late or employ
nude dancers.
Officials at the Ba Vi camp, which is treating 232 female
prostitutes and drug addicts, say simply penalizing drug use and
prostitution is not enough. They've watched the number of inmates
testing positive for HIV climb from just one in 1996 to 103 now.
The women's camp -- considerably less severe than a program
for male addicts at an adjacent walled-in portion of what was
once a state farm -- emphasizes detoxification, re-education,
AIDS understanding and physical labor. Women inmates can
choose from farming, sewing, incense making, silkworm raising
and hairdressing, with their income supplementing the center's
meager monthly budget of $16.60 per inmate.
"We are attempting to change their behavior and attitude toward
society to make it more correct. Most do not have any job skills,"
said Nguyen Vi Hung, director of Hanoi's Department for Social
Evils Prevention.
"If they are not given any job training or treatment they would be
very dangerous to society," he said.
Officials and others say most Vietnamese women in the sex
industry are forced into the work by poverty and lack of jobs.
"When everyone is able to find a good job, that will reduce the
number of people in the sex trade," said Le Ngoc Anh, 24,
another HIV-positive inmate. "If I go home and can find a job,
then I won't re-enter the sex trade. But if I don't, I'm not sure."
Critics say the job skills taught at the camp are too low-paying
and more should be done to help women after they leave. They
say scarce resources should be used to help former inmates
become AIDS educators among their friends instead of for a
high-failure nationwide compulsory rehabilitation program.
With a national budget of just $3.3 million a year for AIDS
prevention, the government has too little money to pay even $10
per month to released inmates who want to become AIDS
educators, Hung said.
"I would like to be an AIDS communicator if I could be one,
because it would help me and help society," said Quynh. "I hope I
can help others in the sex industry so they don't get this disease."
By David Thurber - The Associated Press - January 12, 2002.
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