Hanoi, Easter 2010. Not long ago, the Ministry for Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs at Hanoi published a report saying that the current number of handicapped people living in Vietnam is more than 5.1 million. That is 7% of the population.
The consequences of the war, frequent natural disasters and the often harsh living conditions are one reason why the number of handicapped people in Vietnam is particularly high.
Here are some details:
Type of Handicap
35.46% physical, muscular, bones
15.7% eyesight
9.21% hearing
7.92% language
9.11% mental
13.93% nerves
Circumstances in Life
95.85% living at home, hidden by their families
3.31% single
0.22% living in federal institutions
0.99 % living on the streets
Age Groups
28.85% under 15 years of age
71.15% between 15 and 55 years of age,
one million of them under 18
Education
51.2% illiterate
25.6% primary school (grades 1-5)
21.6% secondary school (grades 6-9)
1% higher education (grades 10-12)
0.6 university studies.
For handicapped people in Vietnam, higher education and vocational training is hard to get. As you see from the statistics, 0.22 % of the handicapped people live in federal institutions. Most of them are grown-ups or relations of civil servants.
Federal Aid
Federal agencies in Vietnam receive plenty of money for the support of the handicapped, especially for Agent-Orange children. Agent Orange children are an internationally recognized problem. International relief organisations support the Vietnam government with enormous sums each year. The question is: How much money did the state governments, federal government, Red Cross and other German relief organisations spend in support of programs for handicapped people in Vietnam? Did anybody ever evaluate the result or at least take a closer look at the institutions?
The establishment of federal and private schools (including those supported by the church) is not suitable for people with handicaps. Strictly spoken, when a school or vocational training centre was built, nobody ever thought of the handicapped people.
Integration
Besides education and vocational training, there is another central problem: integration.
It is a huge, hard task to facilitate the integration into society for handicapped people. 95% of all handicapped persons are hidden by their families. They are isolated and locked away because their families are ashamed of them. There is no contact with other people, no social orientation. They do all kinds of low jobs in the family and are often being taken advantage of as cheap labour in factories. Due to their helpless situation, the girls often fall victim to rape, hunger, pain, pregnancy, abortion, HIV, poverty – it is a vicious circle that ends at the lowest level of society.
What the children need is assistance, protection and post-care.
Assistance: reasonable, logical, honest and Christian.
Protection: human, legal, economical
Post-care: security and a future
What Handicapped Persons Wish for Themselves
According to polls, the handicapped people’s wishes are
66.4% want a proper education, 23.9% want rehabilitation, 9.56% want work, 0.14% want money from the government.
As you can see from the statistics, handicapped people, too, are very eager to get an education and vocational training. This is especially true for persons whose malady only set in after puberty
Federal social organisations expect 70 % of all handicapped children to attend school in the year 2010. Nobody said anything about how they are supposed to manage it
The church organisations (mostly catholic) in Vietnam, especially in the diocese of Sai Gon, are socially very active. They get no federal assistance, yet do a lot of the social work: they stand by the poor, the uneducated and jobless, the street children and the impoverished children, the handicapped children and those who suffer from HIV / AIDS – they provide love and support, regardless of all the difficulties. In Vietnam, the church fights undiscourageably for helping the people, no matter what their persuasion – of more than 5 million handicapped people, only 2 % are Christians
Vietnam is a very poor country. There is no way, Vietnam can take care of 5 million handicapped people through their lives, nor do most of them want this to happen. Our time on this world is not eternal. This here is just an interim station. We came into the world with nothing and God gave us various degrees of wealth. Yet it was not given to us for our own use only. As Christians, we are responsible for our fellow human beings. Together, we can create a better world and everyone has the right to a fair share.
I wish you all a Happy Easter
Yours Francis Van Ho
MS (modifications) – Translated by EG
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