Greater commitment to Vietnamese street children needed - Children/Workers
10/3/08
In Vietnam, according to data by the Street Educators’ Club, the number of street children has dropped from 21,000 in 2003 to 8,000 in 2007. In particular, the number went from 1,507 to 113 in Hanoi and from 8,507 to 794 in Ho Chi Minh City. By contrast, the number of migrant children is up. And street children are by and large migrants as well. Ms Hang, a social worker involved with street children in the Thu Duc district, told AsiaNews that “now migrant children are also street children. They come to industrial areas to earn money. Parents take advantage of their children’s labour to have money for their living. So we need to raise awareness among adults about rights of children. The government needs to implement the accords reached at the international conference on the rights of children that it signed in 1999. Many street children do not have birth certificates; this means that when they grow up they will not have an identity card so they cannot work for any government company or go to the hospital.”