Many children in Vietnam have to work to support their families rather than being able to attend school.
However, a report released by the Ministry of Labor – Invalid and Social Affairs in 2008 showed that there are 26,027 children that are in hard labor conditions in hazardous environment such as gold mines, timber operations or cargo transport.
[1] The actual number could be much larger as children employed as domestic servants, restaurant assistants or children working on the streets as beggars, shoes shiners or newspaper and lottery sellers were not covered in the report.
The report also revealed that up to 62 out of 173 manufacturing factories in Ho Chi Minh City employed child laborers, 50 percent of whom are below 15 years old.
In addition, child labor remains a controversial issue in Vietnam as many people believe that children should share the workload and household responsibilities with their family.