Vietnam slammed for pre-summit sweep of street children
HANOI - A US human rights group slammed Vietnam for roundups and violent abuses of street children ahead of key international events including this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Human Rights Watch said a 2003-2006 study had found that homeless children detained in a notorious centre outside Hanoi had been "subject to routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff or other detainees."
The New York-based group said it had learned the arrests of street children "were intensifying in the lead-up" to the November 18-19
APEC summit here, to be attended by US
President George W. Bush.
Communist Vietnam has stepped up its campaign against "social evils" ahead of the gathering, its largest ever international conference, that will bring to Hanoi the leaders of 21 economies also including China, Russia and Japan.
Vietnam has seen annual economic growth of 7-8 percent in recent years but the scrapping of state subsidies and farm cooperatives has widened the wealth gap and sent poor rural families and lone children to cities looking for work.
Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs estimates there are 23,000 street children in the country and 1,500 in the capital Hanoi.
Human Rights Watch said Vietnam had launched similar crackdowns in the past on children who shine shoes, beg, pickpocket or sell postcards and chewing gum around Hanoi tourists sites, temples, markets and bus and train stations.
The roundup campaigns aim "to remove street children, beggars and vagrants from the street and out of view of international visitors," said the group.
Similar crackdowns on homeless adults and children -- often called "bui doi" or "children of the dust" here -- took place before the 2003 South East Asian Games and the following year's Asia-Europe Summit Meeting.
The group said it had been unable to visit detention centres commonly off limits to UN groups and journalists but that interviews with former inmates had painted a harsh picture that breached global child protection standards.
The report highlighted the Dong Dau social protection centre, 30 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of Hanoi, which also serves as a holding centre for sex workers, drug addicts and disabled and elderly people without family support.
Inmates under 18 "are locked up for 23 hours a day in filthy, overcrowded cells, sometimes together with adults, with only a bucket for excrement," said the report, which the group said was corroborated by non-governmental groups.
The children had reported that lights remained on night and day, and that they were released for only two half-hour periods a day to wash and eat. There was no access to medical treatment or rehabilitation or educational activities.
"Children reported that Dong Dau staff members slap, punch and beat children with rubber truncheons for violations of rules, which sometimes have not been clarified with the children," said the 88-page report.
Human Rights Watch said none of the children they spoke to were told why they were rounded up or what rights they had in detention, and that no efforts were made to reunite them with their families afterwards.
"Instead, the children we talked with said they were deposited at the gates of the centers... and expected to find their way. Most did not go back to their homes in the countryside but returned to Hanoi with no new alternatives."
By Frank Zeller - Agence France Presse - November 12, 2006.
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