State-sponsored forced labor in Vietnam

From: Eric Gottwald, International Labor Rights Forum [mailto:laborrights@ilrf.org]
Sent: Tuesday, 10 July 2012 7:40 AM
To: Hung Nguyen
Subject: State-sponsored forced labor in Vietnam

Ask your friends to sign the petition calling on USTR to follow the United Nation’s lead and demand an end to forced labor in Vietnam’s drug detention centers

Dear Hung,

I’m writing to you with an important update on ILRF's work to end state-sponsored forced labor in Vietnam’s drug detention centers.

As someone who has already signed ILRF’s petition to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, you already know the grim facts about forced labor and other human rights abuses in Vietnam’s drug detention centers:

• In drug detention centers all over Vietnam, some 40,000 men, women, and children are being held against their will and subjected to forced labor and even torture in the name of “treating” them for drug dependence.
• The victims are held for an average of 4 to 5 years without ever receiving an impartial medical assessment, hearing or trial in a court of law.
• Detainees do not receive evidence-based medical treatment for their addictions, but instead must perform so-called “labor therapy” where they are forced to work 8 or more hours a day doing repetitive tasks, like husking and shelling cashews, for little or no pay.
• As punishment for refusing to work, violating center rules, or simply not filling a daily quota, detainees report being beaten with clubs, shocked with electrical batons, or placed in solitary confinement.

Despite the government of Vietnam’s continuing efforts to mischaracterize the forced labor abuses as “job training” or “career development,” we’re winning the battle to bring this issue to the attention of the international community: In the last few months alone, a number of influential United Nation’s agencies have made public statements calling for the closure of compulsory drug detention centers in favor of alternative, community based drug treatment that respects human rights.

Now that we have the international community’s attention, we need to translate this momentum into action:

This week USTR representatives will meet with Vietnamese officials in San Diego for negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. Let’s send them a message that Vietnam should not be rewarded with greater market access under any trade agreement until they take concrete steps to end these egregious human rights abuses.

Please take a moment to share this link with your friends and colleagues and have them sign ILRF’s petition to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk urging him to follow the lead of the many UN agencies that have already called on the government of Vietnam to close the drug detention centers.

Thanks again for all your help.

Sincerely,

Eric Gottwald
International Labor Rights Forum