Viet govt targets ethnic minorities for overseas work
Updated
There's growing concern over a Vietnamese government move to send abroad some 20-thousand workers from ethnic minorities. The government says it's part of a plan to reduce poverty in 61 districts where ethnic minorities make up more than 90 per cent of the population. The Ministry of Labour says workers will be given financial assistance and training to prepare them for working overseas in countries including Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and the U.A.E., where there's high demand for manual laborers, agricultural and factory workers and domestic helpers.
Presenter: Claudette Werden
Speaker: Trung Doan, Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers
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DOAN: The record of Hanoi regime in exporting workers overseas hasn't been good. Now in particular there are more than 100 thousand Vietnamese workers working in Malaysia where my group has visited a few times and know the situation quite well. They are badly exploited by the employment agencies, that are licensed by the Hanoi regime and also by the employers in Malaysia, these three parties work together as a system and badly exploit these workers. Whether it is the intention or not, ethnic minority workers sent overseas will be badly exploited as well and the Hanoi regime will also make some profit from sending them overseas.
WERDEN: And why do you think the government is targetting ethnic minorities?
DOAN: There are both political and economic reasons, firstly the economic reasons are twofold, firstly to reduce unemployment, and potential unrest because the unemployment rate among the ethnic minorities is worse that other Vietnamese populations. Secondly there is money to be made by regime officials by working behind the scenes with employment agencies to export them. Every export workers earns these corrupt officials a few thousand dollars. I think there is also a political reason to send these workers away particularly if they're men, would reduce the population that could cause troubles for the regime.
WERDEN: But there's no suggestion they're going to be forced to go overseas.
DOAN: It's not likely to be by compulsion but its more likely to be by trickery. Based on the information we haveon Vietnamese workers sent to Malaysia. The situation is this, these employment agencies which are all licensed by these corrupt regime officials go to poor areas and advertise themselves with good sounding contracts saying this, you pay me this money, which is equivalent to one year's wages overseas, you give me this money upfront and I give you contract to work in Malaysia and when the workers arrive in Malaysia, the employers told them we never seen this contract, you have been cheated so, its likely to work this way with the ethnic minority because, ethnic minority people most of them are pretty poor and they can be cheated with the prospect of having good employment.
WERDEN: Trung Doan from the Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers, the organsiation was recently successful in securing the passports, return airfares, and back payments for thousands of foreign workers from Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal, working in sporting company Nike's factories in Malaysia. Nike found the living conditions of these workers were unacceptable and has issued a review of all its contract factories in Malaysia.
