CORRESPONDENCE - 85A COMBINED REPORTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM 2012

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platform and policies. At the central level, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor is led by Mr. Dang Ngoc Tung, a member of the CPV Central Committee, who is responsible for obstructing the workers from unifying into groups beyond the CPV control, and in training local cadres on how to prevent and dissolve workers' strikes. Facing multiple strikes in recent years while attempting to maintain social stability, the Vietnamese authorities plan to change their 1990 Labor Law. An amendment bill was set for discussion on 22 November 2011 by the National Assembly and is expected to be passed in May 2012. Nevertheless, based on what has gone through at discussion sessions, the core issue of the labor union's legal position and its role will remain unchanged. The amendment still confirms that the labor union is the only representative of the workers class and laborers under CPV leadership, implying that besides the General Confederation, a CPV tool, there won't be any other acceptable union. 3. Forced Labor Forced labor is the result of much human trafficking and explains much of the hardship that Vietnamese export workers have had to undergo in the countries of destination. In the CPV officials' view, it is quite normal when their victims are forced to work in drastic conditions beyond any expectation, especially after 1975 in South Vietnam when hundreds of thousands of people associated with the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN), both civilian and military, were tricked into filling the so- called `re- education camps.' In 2011, however, the forced labor regime in Vietnam drew the concern of world public opinion through a report by the Human Rights Watch entitled "The Rehab Archipelago: Forced Labor and Other Vietnam Human Rights Network * Annual Report 2011 Abuses in Drug Detention, " which exposed the true face of the so- called "rehab centers," actually concentration camps where labor is forced on drug addicts for profit. According to the same agency, there were in 2000 up to 56 such centers nationwide, increasing to 123 in 2011. During this period, up to 309,000 victims were detained there. Almost all of them went through no legal procedures, and once in detention, they had to work really hard to produce manual and agricultural commodities for both the internal and overseas markets without receiving any reward for their labor. Instead, they were subjected to punishments and torture for any attempt to avoid working or failure to achieve the production goals. In sickness, they were totally neglected without medical treatment, even the basic one. Some of those with HIV were still forced to work until death. Vietnam has been reminded by Human Rights Watch to close these centers and investigate wrong activities there, including arrest at will, torture, and abuse of labor for profit. Also, the government of Vietnam was requested to reconsider its financial support for these centers and order the companies that do business with them to stop their contracts of using forced labor. Another aspect of the forced labor is the mistreatment of children by forcing them to work in risky conditions. Nevertheless, the government, with the assistance of international child - protection agencies, ambitiously planned to end this vice within 4 years (2010 - 2015), while millions children are still having to work to increase their families' income. A number of them can work and go to school at the same time, but many others in the countryside have no way to know what schooling is. They either have to work hard as servants in rich families, or selling lottery tickets or doing shoeshine in public places, or laboring in handicraft 23