The Vietnamese National Assembly recently concluded its debate on whether it made sense to detain thousands of sex workers in so-called rehabilitation facilities where they were held without right of appeal and forced to work (including for private companies) without pay. In a vote of 70 percent in favor, and 30 percent against, the National Assembly moved to close these useless and punitive institutions. Justice advocates, UN experts, and people with HIV and those who care about them are hoping that drug detention centers in Vietnam will follow soon.
The closure of sex worker detention centers is part of a larger Vietnamese reform to improve due process and decrease the arbitrary and prolonged nature of punishments for administrative, rather than criminal, violations. Many actors—including Vietnam’s Ministry of Justice, the Department of Social Evils Prevention (charged with addressing sex work and drug use in Vietnam), UNDP, and National Assembly members—have been involved in the reexamination of the law, with sometimes heated debates. One female member of the National Assembly reportedly suggested that if the government was so interested in prolonged detention as a solution to sex work, then perhaps clients of sex workers should also be detained. This suggestion was greeted with little enthusiasm from the male representatives in attendance.
For Vietnam’s drug users, some 30,000 of whom remain detained in forced labor facilities, there are also positive—if less bold—signs of progress. The government has pledged not to build more detention centers and to reduce by half the number of those detained, instead supporting “community-based” treatment. The new administrative detention law includes a pledge to increase due process for those held for drug violations, though even these improvements will take years to come into force. Meanwhile, community-based options such as methadone treatment for those dependent on heroin are gaining clients and supporters, including among police and physicians who have seen how well they work. Drug user groups are forming support networks and showing that they can work more effectively than detention center staff to inspire change and get people jobs.
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The average monthly income for a sex worker in Vietnam is VND8.6 million (US$412), 2.5 times higher than the median income of 20 percent of the highest income earners in the country, according to a survey involving around 400 prostitutes.
Accordingly, female sex workers earn VND10.6 million ($510) a month each while a male counterpart gets just VND6.55 million ($315).
A sex worker works 5 to 7 hours per day and 19 days a month on average, the survey finds out.
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HANOI—The Associated Press is reporting that an official has been sentenced to two years in prison for posting porn to a government website. Phan Ngoc Quan was convicted Monday of ‘illegally accessing’ the official Tra Vinh province website.
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