VietNamNet Bridge – Many Vietnamese children are spending their childhoods working around the clock for clothing manufacturers.

This little girl has to work from the morning until midnight at a garment enterprise in Binh Hung Hoa ward, Binh Tan District, HCM City.

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At a clothing business in HCM City, most child workers have to work 14 hours per day in small, hot, gloomy rooms. Employers openly admit they don’t have work contracts and have to work the whole week.

They explain away their use of child workers by various means, saying it is difficult to hire adult workers or more honestly that they employ children to cut labour costs.

Hoang Van Hanh, who runs a clothing business in Ward 13, Tan Binh district, HCM City, which uses many child workers, said: “We have run this business for eight years. We only earn enough to live on so we don’t have a business licence. Nobody comes here for labour inspections and nobody tells me about how many working hours are set for workers at what age. We work until 12pm here, no problem.”

The owner of an sewing enterprise in Phu Thanh ward, Tan Phu district, said: “It is the same everywhere, all clothing enterprises in the city use child workers who work until 12pm”.

Dang Thi Hai Ly, who runs a garment enterprise in Binh Hung Hoa Ward, Binh Tan district, said: “It is normal for them (children) to work until 12pm. When I was a child, I also worked like this”.

She knew little regarding laws on labour, business registration, labour registration or labour contract.

It is rare to have a few employers who voluntarily cut down the working schedule for child workers. “I ask them to work till nearly 11pm, instead of 1-2am like neighbouring enterprises. I know that I have breached the labour law but I can’t do it any differently,” said Vo Van Chuong, the manager of a private clothing workshop in Binh Hung Hoa Ward.

Sourced from poverty

Many children from the central province of Thua Thien – Hue have to go to HCM City to work like Nguyen Van Den. In Diem Truong village, Den’s hometown, a father named Pham Van Anh said that he has six children and his eldest daughter, 13, recently went to Saigon to work. He said the little girl is working for her aunt and earns 5 million dong ($290) a year.

Anh’s father, Pham Thu, said his nephew was maltreated. This 14-year-old boy started working for a clothing enterprise in HCM City early this year. The employer said the annual pay is 10 million dong ($590).

“Three months ago, he called home and said that he had to work until betweenone and two am. He couldn’t stand it and wanted to go home but the employer didn’t agree, saying that my nephew had to return the fare from here to HCM City, food expenditures and vocational training fees for the last few months. My nephew’s sister in HCM City had to ask for the police’s assistance. He is now working at the same garment enterprise as his sister,” he told Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Huynh Dien, the chief of Trung Hung village, Vinh Hung commune, Thua Thien – Hue province, said: “Over 100 families in my village have children working in Saigon. Only 30 families here earn enough to eat. They are too poor and have many children so they let their children work in Saigon”.

Everywhere, people said they are too poor and there is no job to do in the countryside so the kids have to go to HCM City to work.

Vo Thi Kim Khanh from the Thua Thien – Hue provincial Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said there are three reasons for rural children to quit school early to work in cities: their families are too poor and have many children, they follow their friends and they are enticed by labour agencies who come to rural areas to recruit child labour. 

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre