Child sexual abuse on the rise in Vietnam

Vietnam has seen an alarming increase in cases of child sexual abuse in recent years, with some victims as young as six years old.

Ten year-old girl NHL (second, L) talks to journalist about the old man who abused her when she was on her lottery ticket sale

At a recent conference on child abuse in Hanoi, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) reports that most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims, either as 'friends' of the family, babysitters or neighbors. Only in a small number of cases are they complete strangers.
In some shocking cases that have caused much outrage in the public, parental incest occurs where the father or stepfather assaults the victim.
Alcohol has been identified as one of the contributing factors to the crime, as most offenders have been known to make the assault under the influence of alcohol.
The number of child sexual abuse across the nation has increased considerably from 200 in 2005 to 1,427, a sevenfold increase, in 2008, according to the MOLISA report.
In 2010, the number of victims dropped to about 1,000 but the actual figure is believed to be higher as many victims failed to report the crime to the authority due to a sense of shame, family dishonor, social discrimination or private settlement between the victim’s family and the offender.

As worrying as the growth in the number of child sexual abuse is the increasingly younger age of the victims.

In the Mekong Delta provinces within the 18 months from 2009 till June last year, 13.5 percent of the girl victims under six were assaulted and 37.2 percent of the victims were in the age group of 6-13.

Heart-breaking cases on the rise

NHM, 15, lives in the southern Tay Ninh Province and is one of the victims of incestuous sex abuse -- raped by her own biological father in their home after her mother passed away.

“He forced me to take the place of my mother when he was drunk,” said the young girl to us in her shabby, desolate small house, with practically no furniture in it but an altar with her mother’s picture on top.

“Many times, I wanted to tell my grandparents about it but in the morning he became a different person -- a good, gentle father who is devoted to hard work to care for me and my sisters. So I forgot about all that happened the night before.”

NHM was only taken to hospital for abortion by the father when she was about five months in pregnancy and the neighbors began to notice her unusual large belly.

After the abortion, her father continued to subject her to sexual abuse. One day, exhausted mentally and physically, NHM went to see her grandmother and told her the truth.

The father was subsequently arrested and sentenced to six years in prison.

When we met, NHM talked happily with us about being placed in the foster care of a charitable institution and that she could now return to school.

“I was adopted by a charitable organization. Now I live in a new home, go to a new school and most importantly, nobody knows about my past so no one looks down on me or discriminate against me,” she said.

NHL is another heart-breaking case of child sex abuse.

A 10-year-old orphan who lived with her poor grandmother, she had to walk around the city to sell lottery tickets, earning VND50,000 – 70,000 (USD2.5 – 3.5) a day for daily food.

In the middle of 2009, she was lured into a 60-year-old neighbor’s house where he sexually abused her and then gave her VND5,000 (USD0.24)

This went on for more than a year until the abuse was discovered in August 2010 when his neighbors caught him committing the act of assaulting the little girl in his house. The man was seized and handed over to the police.

With no other source of income for her grandmother and herself, NHL still has to walk the streets of HCM City to sell lottery tickets, where every day she still faces the threat of falling victim to another sexual offender lurking around the corner.