Is there Child Labour in the Natural Stone Industry in Vietnam? Research Report (Wissenschaftliches Gutachten zu § 4a des Gesetzes über das Friedhofs- und Bestattungswesen des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Bestattungsgesetz – BestG NRW) im Auftrag des Ministeriums für Gesundheit, Emanzipation, Pflege und Alter des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen MGEPA) Authors: Dr. Jörg Wischermann Dr. Dang Thi Viet Phuong Prof. Dr. Adam Fforde 30 September 2016 1 Contents Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 1 List of acronyms ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 4 Context ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Overview ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Core conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 5 Section 1 – Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 6 Section 2 - The current legal position and enforcement ........................................................................ 7 2.1 The law applicable to child labour ................................................................................................ 7 The 2013 Constitution ..................................................................................................................... 7 The 2016 Child Law ......................................................................................................................... 8 The 2012 Labour Code .................................................................................................................... 8 The 2015 Civil Code ......................................................................................................................... 9 The Penal Code ................................................................................................................................ 9 2007 Law on Domestic Violence Prevention and Control ............................................................. 10 Othe su-la douets ........................................................................................................... 10 Section 2.1 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 12 2.2 Enforcement ................................................................................................................................ 12 Section 2.2 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 16 Section 3 - Worst forms of child labour in the natural stone industry ................................................. 17 3.1 Worst forms of child labour in the country of study – overview ................................................ 17 Child Labour in Household Employment ....................................................................................... 19 Street Children .............................................................................................................................. 20 Mining and related activities ......................................................................................................... 20 Child Labour in Inappropriate Workplaces ................................................................................... 21 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 21 Section 3.1 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 21 3.2 Child labour in the natural stone industry – situation before 2010 ............................................ 22 Section 3.2 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 25 3.3 Child labour in the natural stone industry – current situation (since 2010) ............................... 25 Section 3.3 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 29 Section 4 - Measures to reduce and eliminate child labour ................................................................. 29 4.1 The social discourse on child labour ........................................................................................... 29 Section 4.1 - Key question and response ...................................................................................... 29 4.2 Efforts by the government to combat child labour ..................................................................... 30 Section 4.2 - Key questions and responses ................................................................................... 34 4.3 Industry self-regulation ............................................................................................................... 35 Section 4.3 - Key question and response ...................................................................................... 35 4.4 Other measures ..................................................................................................................... 35 Section 4.4 - Key question and response ...................................................................................... 35 Section 5 - References ........................................................................................................................... 36 Appendices ............................................................................................................................................ 42 2 1. List of interviewees on child labour .............................................................................................. 42 2. Legal documents regarding child labour ....................................................................................... 44 3. Extracts from Legal Documents .................................................................................................... 45 Lists of jobs and workplaces in which the employment of minors is prohibited .......................... 45 List of light work where use of persons under 15 years old to work is permitted ....................... 57 4. Child labour - specific reports in the mass media ......................................................................... 57 TABULATION OF CHILD LABOUR IN STONE INDUSTRY AS ON MEDIA .......................................... 57 Child labour abuse: the story of Hao Anh ..................................................................................... 61 5 – Details of ILO, UNICEF and INGO/NGO activities ........................................................................ 64 ILO ................................................................................................................................................. 64 UNICEF ........................................................................................................................................... 65 INGO/NGO ..................................................................................................................................... 66 List of acronyms DCCP Department of Child Care and Protection DOLISA Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA offices at province/city level) EA Economic activity GoV Government of Vietnam ILO International Labour Organisation LFS Labour Force Survey MOLISA Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs MIC Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey NA National Assembly SAVY Surveys and Assessment of Vietnamese Youth ToR Terms of Reference UNICEF Uited Natios Childes Eege Fud VCP Vietnamese Communist Party VFF Vietnam Fatherland Front VHLSS Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey 3 Summary Context Since the early 1990s Vietnam has had the combination of a market economy and a government controlled by the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). The country has a deserved reputation for corruption and weak regulation of markets in general, and the VCP has maintained tight control over the mass media. The former means that risks of exploitative activities are high and the latter that press reports that threaten politicians can be and are minimised. However, as the Report shows, significant efforts are made to cu hild laou ause, ad thee is spae to do so, ut this is limited. Whether child labour abuse has been increased or decreasing is, actually hard to judge. On the one hand, especially in the 1990s when the country sharply reduced poverty, steep falls in the incidence of child labour abuse were reported by various surveys. More recently, however, as the country has experienced an increasingly corrupt and ineffectively-regulated form of capitalism, the reliability of such surveys, collected as they are by officials often charged with investigating child labour abuse, has probably fallen. Press reports show that flagrant instances of child labour abuse can sometimes lead to criminal prosecutions,