Street Children in Vietnam
Interactions of Old and New Causes in a Growing Economy

July 2005
Duong Kim Hong*
Vietnam Development Forum
Kenichi Ohno∗
Vietnam Development Forum andNational Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

Abstract
The problem of street children in Vietnam, a country rapidly growing andintegrating with the world, arises from the interaction of traditional causessuch as the loss or divorce of parents and new causes such as economic
incentive. This paper reviews the existing studies for the definition andclassification of street children. Changing conditions are compared acrosstime and between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. We then propose a new
typology of street children based on causes and situations. Causes areclassified into broken family, mindset problem, and economic migration.
Situations are divided into current protection and future investment. It isshown that the broken family group is most difficult to assist while theeconomic migration group often shows strong desire for study and better
life. However, their aspiration is frequently interrupted by various
setbacks. Since street children are not a homogenous group, intervention
must also be diversified according to the needs of each type of children.

∗

Duong Kim Hong is a researcher at the Vietnam Development Forum (VDF), Hanoi, and Kenichi Ohno is
the project leader on the Japanese side of the VDF and a professor at the National Graduate Institute for
Policy Studies (GRIPS), Tokyo. The authors can be contacted at dkhong@vdf.org.vn

1

Acknowledgements
First of all, we would like to express our deepest appreciation to the Youth Volunteer
Club of the Student Magazine of Vietnam who helped us conduct the survey on street
children in Hanoi in June 2004.
We would also like to thank greatly the officials of MOLISA, DOLISA in Ho Chi Minh
City, the Committee of Population, Family and Children in Hanoi, and the Committee ofPopulation, Family and Children in Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Thanh Xuan, and Tay HoDistricts in Hanoi for their research support, sincere advice, and the valuable data thatthey have provided.
We are also equally grateful to the people at the Terre des hommes Foundation forsharing with us their very precious data and experience in working with street children.
Without their information, our research would have been incomplete.
In the process of writing this paper, we benefited greatly from many useful comments by
the attendants of several workshops that VDF hosted or co-hosted in Hanoi and Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam and Osaka and Tokyo in Japan. We would like to send our best
regards and sincere thanks to these participants.
Our workshops would not have been so successful had we not received the hospitality
and assistance of Dr Truong Thi Minh Sam (Institute of Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh
City) and Ms. Azko Hayashida (GRIPS) who helped us with the logistics andorganization of the workshops in Ho Chi Minh City and Japan, respectively.
We are aware that this paper still has limitations. The responsibility for any remaining
errors rests solely with the two authors. At the same time, we would be very happy toreceive any comments or suggestions from the readers of this paper.

2

1. Introduction
The problem of street children is one of the most pressing social problems in Vietnam ingeneral and in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in particular. Recently the sight ofchildren selling chewing gum in restaurants or shining shoes in street corners has become
familiar. People sometimes call them roaming kids or “dust of life.” However, thedynamic mechanism that prompts these children to drop out of school and go selling inthe street is yet to be analyzed deeply or comprehensively. Such causes as dire poverty
and parents’ divorce may be common to the street children problem in all developing
countries, but other causes may be unique to Hanoi and HCMC, the two cities
experiencing an enormous social and economic transformation.
Children end up on the street for a variety of reasons. For some, the street is an escapefrom broken families or domestic violence. For others, street life is a means ofsupplementing family income, passing time and even having fun. In addition, thebreakdown of traditional family values, education zeal and community structure leaves alarge number of children without necessary care and support for their sound growth anddevelopment.
Children who work or live on streets do not have the full knowledge of their rights andare often unaware of various risks in unguided urban life. Many of them are under the
stress of day-to-day living. Some use alcohol or illegal drugs to relieve the stress and toforget painful experiences. Others are trained to become professional beggars. Still others
commit crimes individually or join anti-social gangs. Disabled children may be sold tostrangers who force them to beg on streets. Girls seem to be in particular danger as thetarget of sexual assault and exploitation.
Thanks to doi moi policy, the people’s average living standard has improved dramaticallysince the late 1980s. National statistics show that GDP per capita rose from 156 USD in
1992 to 482 USD in 2002 (GSO 2004). In 1993, 58% of the population was under thepoverty line1 but the ratio fell to 37.4% in 1998 and to 28.9% in 2002 (GSO 1999, 2004).
With these achievements, Vietnam is one of the best performers among the low income
countries. Despite this, fast growth and global integration have also intensified certain
traditional social problems and created new ones. As the average income rose, someproblems get much worse and more visible, and the problem of street children is one ofthem2.
Vibrant cities like Hanoi and HCMC generate new opportunities and demands for jobs
like house cleaning, shoe shining, and selling petty goods to residents and foreign tourists
which urban people are unwilling to perform. Instead, the expectation of cash income
encourages rural labor to migrate to the city and supply such services. Working on thestreet may be more dangerous and tiresome than tilling paddy fields in the countryside,1

The poverty line used here is 1USD/person/day.
Other problems that may intensify with economic development include corruption, environmental
destruction, land bubble, the rise of materialism, and the decline of cultural and spiritual values.

2

3

but it is more profitable. Rural people come to cities even though they have to live
separately from their families and familiar landscape. In addition, the excitement of urbanlife as well as opportunities for education, training and jobs attract young rural people
like a magnet. These are the “pulling” forces of rural-urban migration.
With the rapid growth of the national economy, rural life in Vietnam has also changed
substantially, sometimes for the better but other times for the worse. The material
conditions in villages have improved thanks to better roads, schools, electrification,
medical service, and so on. However, new troubles also arise. The way of thinking andthe education level of many villagers cannot catch up with the speed of social andeconomic change. Traditional values are weakened while new values to support rural life
are slow to emerge. Each farmer has increasingly less land to cultivate due to populationpressure and transfer to other uses, which accelerates labor surplus in rural areas. These
are the “pushing” forces of rural-urban migration for both adults and children.
There are many researchers, officials and social workers who work directly withdisadvantaged children in urban areas. There have also been many studies and reports on
this issue with various purposes and methods. Based on these existing works and studies,
we would like to analyze the problem of street children further with a special attention on
the dynamic implications of Vietnam’s economic growth.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section introduces alternative
definitions and classifications of street children. Section 3 reviews existing studies ofstreet children in HCMC and Hanoi including the recent survey conducted by VDF.
Section 4 analyzes the causes and situations of street children and the mutual interactionof the two. Dynamic movements among different situations are also discussed. Section 5
presents some case studies of former street children. Section 6 concludes.

2. Street Children: Who Are They?
Street children is the most common term used by international organizations and related
agencies to refer to the type of children under our study. This term was also adopted in
Vietnam and officially used in government ministries and organizations. Recently,
however, some Vietnamese government offices started to use the term children
wandering and earning on streets instead of the old term for more precision. In this paper
the term street children continues to be used because this is still a widely andinternationally accepted term which has been used for a long time.
Apart from terminology, there is also the problem in defining these children and counting
them according to each definition. In Vietnam at present, no one knows the exact numberof children living or working on the street, and estimates vary from one organization toanother. Clearly, the problem of definition and the problem of counting are closely
related. In order to compare their numbers across time and location, it is necessary to use
statistics collected under consistent—or at least similar—definitions. Moreover, street
children are not a homogeneous group. Each child has a different family background, a4different reason for being on the street, a different education level, and different
requirements to be filled. An effective categorization will bring a better understanding of
the problems and the needs of each group of street children.
2.1. Definitions of the government and international organizations
Street children can be defined in a number of ways. Let us briefly look at somecommonly used definitions, namely, those of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social
Affairs (MOLISA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Terre deshommes Foundation, a Swiss street children NGO operating in Vietnam since 1989.
According to MOLISA, street children is one of the ten disadvantaged children groups3.
Following the new law, MOLISA defines street children as “children who leave theirfamilies, earn their living by themselves, and have unstable working and living locations;or children wandering on the street with their families” (National Assembly 2004, p.2).
The number of street children in the entire country is estimated to be around 19,000 in
2003, of which Hanoi accounts for 1,500 and HCMC for nearly 9,000. MOLISA does notclassify street children into subcategories.
UNICEF defines street children as children under 18 years old who spend most of theirtime on the street. UNICEF also presents three subcategories of street children: street
living children, street working children and the children of street living families. Street
living children are those who have lost ties with their families and live alone on the street.
Street working children are those who spend all or most of their time working on thestreet to earn income for their families or for themselves (they have a home to return toand do not usually sleep on the street). The children of street living families are those
who live with their families on the street.
The definitions and categorization of Terre des hommes are similar to those of UNICEF.
For this reason, the studies of street children by UNICEF and Terre des hommes should
be compatible if proper care is exercised. In its survey conducted in 2000, Terre deshommes Foundation (2004) defines street children as “children under 18 years of age,earning money through casual, street-based activities such as begging, scavenging,peddling, portering, shoe shining, pick-pocketing, petty theft” and who belong to any oneof the following categories:

3

MOLISA’s categorization of disadvantaged children includes the following: (1) orphans and abandoned
children; (2) disabled children; (3) chemical- or toxic-affected victims; (4) HIV/AIDS affected children; (5)working children in hard, toxic or risky conditions; (6) working children who live far away from theirfamily; (7) street children; (8) sexually abused children; (9) drug-addicted children; and (10) law violators.

5

Table 1. Classification of Street Children by Terre des hommes
CategoryA

B
C

D

Description
Children who have run away from home or have nohome; of which
A1: Sleeping on the street
A2: Sleeping off the street
Children sleeping on the street with their family or
guardianChildren living at home, but working in an “at risk”
situation
Migrant child workers engaged in casual street
activities, of which
D1: Sleeping on the street
D2: Sleeping off the street

Note: “at risk” means at least one of the following: (1) working at night; (2)engaging in (casual) sex work or pimping; (3) begging; and (4) using or selling
drugs.

Source: Compiled from Terre des hommes Foundation (2004), p.19.

In this paper, we basically adopt the definition of the Terre des hommes with slight
modification as follows: street children are children under 18 years of age who regularly
earn money through casual, street-based activities.
2.2. Difficulties in collecting data
Even if all organizations agreed on one common definition and categorization of street
children, which is not the case, data collection would not be easy due to the invisibility,
mobility, and seasonality of street children.
Invisibility of street children is one of the major difficulties in conducting survey studies.
Some child workers are highly visible to any observer: shoe shiners, barrow-pushers,
beggars, and vendors of all kinds including trinkets, T shirts, tourist guide books,
chewing gum, and lottery tickets and results. Others are much less visible: those whooffer drugs or sexual services and those who only work at night. In Cau Muoi Market in
HCMC, for example, there are groups of vegetable scavengers who usually work frommidnight to 2 am and again from 5 am to 7 am. They sleep during the day. If a street
children survey is conducted during the day time, these children are likely to be omitted(Terre des hommes Foundation 2004).
Many street children move from one location to another in search of customers. Some arewilling to go anywhere to find an earning opportunity. Their high mobility creates
obvious problems for those who want to count them. Some children also shift from one
job to another.

6

Moreover, street activities are often seasonal. A survey carried out in summer will givedifferent results from those of a winter survey. The Tet holidays also greatly influence theebb and flow of street children.
According to Dr. Tran Trong Khue of the Institute of Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh
City (ISSHO) and Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Minh of the Committee of Population, Family
and Children (CPFC) in HCMC, the average number of street children in HCMC in 2003
was around 8,000. However, this number fluctuated significantly within a year. The
number of street children is always highest during the summer when children do not haveto go to school. The children of poor rural families often take advantage of this spare timeto earn extra money for their families. They leave home for urban streets and engage invending or scavenging. The income that such a child brings home may be as much as ten
times what his or her parents earn monthly doing rural jobs4. In other words, a childworking this way in summer months can make a sum comparable to the family’s entire
rural income for the year. Children are willing to trade off their summer vacation for
additional large income they may gain. This is one clear economic explanation for thehigher number of street children in big cites in the summer time.
Special events like National Independence Day and Seagames 22 also affect the number.
In preparation for these events, unwanted wanderers are rounded up and“institutionalized” in an effort to beautify the cities. During this time, many street
children disappear from their normal locations5. Official campaigns like this leave street
children with the choice of cleaning up their act entirely or leaving the urban center—
often temporarily—for outer and less visible areas. If a survey does not account for thesefactors, the results can easily be misunderstood.
To obtain a comprehensive view of the dynamics of street children, surveys should
ideally be conducted at different times in a year and at different times of the day, which
permits the researcher to gain detailed information on the movements of street children as
well as average trends. However, most surveys are not conducted this way due to thelimitation in time, funding or human resources.

3. Comparing Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Past and Present
Among the surveys on the street children in Vietnam, we have chosen four surveys forcomparison. Two were conducted in HCMC while the other two were conducted in
Hanoi. Two describe the situations many years ago while the other two are more recent.
The four surveys are:4

Information provided at the street children workshop conducted by VDF in HCMC in August 2004. Dr.
Minh confirmed that a child from Duc Pho Commune in Quang Ngai Province, where the average monthly
income was about 100,000 VND, could earn as much as 300,000 VND per month by selling lottery tickets
in HCMC.
5
Captured street children in Hanoi are sent to Ba Vi and Dong Dau detention centers and those in HCMC
are often sent to the School for Teenagers No. 3 in Go Vap District.

7

(i) Terre des hommes Foundation, Children of the Dust in Ho Chi Minh City
(1992). The survey was conducted from January to June 1992.
(ii) Terre des hommes Foundation, A Study on Street Children in Ho Chi Minh
City (2004). The survey was conducted in 2000 and supplemented by group
discussions by service providers in 2002.
(iii) Nguyen Van Buom and Jonathan Caseley, Survey on the Situation of Street
Children in Hanoi (March 1996). The survey was conducted in November andDecember 1995.
(iv) A Survey on Street Children in Hanoi conducted by the VDF (unpublished).
The survey was conducted in June 2004.
3.1. Methodology
The four surveys above share a similar methodology. The only main differences among
them are the locality and the size of surveys. In each case, information was gathered by astructured questionnaire followed by individual interviews.
The first survey was conducted by Terre des hommes in the first six months of 1992.
Seven locations in HCMC were chosen: Ben Nghe area (District 1), Ben Thanh Market
area (District 1), Cau Mong, Cau Muoi Market area (District 1), Cho Lon area (District5), Sai Gon Railway Station (District 3), Western Bus Station area (Binh Chanh District),
and Van Thanh Bus Station (Binh Thanh District). In each area, the sample for interview
was chosen randomly. The gender ratio was chosen to be close to the actual ratio of boys
and girls on the street. Interviews were conducted by three project officers and volunteers
using a questionnaire.
The other Terre des hommes study was conducted in 2000 with elaborate real-timereview and adjustments. The research locations included Cau Muoi Market and Cau
Mong area, Pham Ngu Lao area, Ben Nghe area, Van Thanh area, Saigon Railway
Station area, Cho Lon area, Western Bus Station area, and Ben Thanh Market area.
Survey conductors spent eleven days in each area. They initially examined the generalprofile of the street child community in that area with a view to defining a representative
group for individual interviews. Then they pre-tested the structured interview in the field.
Following that, a workshop by survey conductors was held to revise the technique. It
reviewed the appropriateness of the categorization of street children, the definition andselection of representative groups, and the methods of conducting individual interviews
with the children, data collection, and report writing. As a result of this review, thequestionnaire and interview technique were modified. Continual support from the Terredes hommes survey coordinator and regular whole-group meetings further facilitated
real-time process review.
The survey by Buom and Caseley was carried out in 1995 in four urban districts ofHanoi, namely, Hai Ba Trung, Hoan Kiem, Dong Da, and Ba Dinh; and in one rural

8

district of Hanoi, namely, Gia Lam. The survey instrument was a two-part questionnairecompleted through two separate meetings with each child. The meetings of all researchteams were held weekly to discuss the progress of the survey and to solve any problems
each team might have encountered.
The most recent survey was conducted by VDF in June 2004 in four main districts ofHanoi: Hoan Kiem, Hai Ba Trung, Thanh Xuan, and Tay Ho. The survey instrument wasa questionnaire. The interviews were conducted by four people which included one VDF
researcher and three social workers of the Youth Volunteer Club of the Student Magazineof Vietnam.
Below, we highlight differences between the two cities and shifting trends over time
based on these four surveys. Since their sample sizes and survey locations differ, theresults are not perfectly comparable and care should be exercised in interpreting theresults. Nevertheless, broad pictures should still be valid.
3.2 Trends in number
The annual statistical report of MOLISA indicates that the total number of street children
in Vietnam increased significantly in recent years. In 1997 there were 13,377 street
children, which rose to 19,047 in 1998 and to 21,016 in 2001. This suggests that the
number of new kids on the street is higher than the number of kids who quit street life or
those who are no longer counted as street children because they have grown older. The
annual statistical report of MOLISA also shows that street children are concentrated in
the two urban centers of Hanoi and HCMC. The number of street children is increasing inboth cities although special events like Seagames 22 temporarily decrease their number.
Figure 1 reports the number of street children in HCMC at irregular intervals as reportedby the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA) in HCMC. The
increasing trend is consistent with the national data up to 2001, but there was a sudden
and significant drop immediately after Seagames 22 and the passage of the new Law onChild Care, Protection and Education by the National Assembly. Whether this reduction
is permanent or temporary remains to be seen.
Although it is noted by government officials that the number of street children in Hanoi
fell after the program of sending street children back to their hometown was introduced in
2003, the essence of the problem may not have changed much. There are no reliable andconcrete data on the number of street children in Hanoi for the past few years. According
to interviews conducted by VDF, the current number of street children in Hanoi incomparison with past years may not have decreased significantly, although they may be
more scattered and less visible. Some argue that the problem of street children cannot be
solved unless its root cause such as rural poverty is properly dealt with. Thus, whether thenumber of street children in Hanoi is stable or changing remains an open question. No
one is sure at the moment.

9

Figure 1. Street children in Ho Chi Minh City
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
1993

1996

1998

Source: DOLISA, Ho Chi Minh City.

Summer1999

End 2001 End 2003 to
Beginning
2004

3.3 Where are they from?
It is well known that a vast majority of street children seen in big cities are from rural
areas, not from the cities themselves. But if we look closely, there are some differences
and trends in the characteristics of street children in HCMC and Hanoi.
According to the survey in 1992, 49.5% of the street children in HCMC came from the
Mekong Delta and South Central provinces. Together with children from HCMC itself
and its vicinity, a vast majority (86%) were from the southern half of the country. At thattime, northern children and north central children were relatively few (7% and 6.5%
respectively).
By 2000, the hometowns of street kids in HCMC were a little more widely spread,
although 74% still came from the southern half of the country. But the categorization ofstreet children provides more detailed information. More than 70% of children in
categories A, B and C (see Table 1 above) came from the south and south central part ofthe country while more than 60% of children in category D (economic motive) are fromthe north and north central part. This indicates that, in recent years, most of the northernchildren in HCMC moved there as migrant workers. Category D children have different
attitudes and behavior from the other types because their lives and jobs are more “stable”
even though their earnings are generally low.

10

Figure 3. Hometowns of HCMC Street Children in 1992

Cambodia2%

No answer
1.5%

Hanoi
1.5%

China
0.5%

East Northern
Provinces
5.5%

North Central
Provinces
0.5%
Mekong delta
25.5%

Central Provinces
6%

HCMC
16%
South Central
provinces24%
Suburb areas
24.4%

Source: Terre des hommes Foundation (1992).

Figure 4. Hometowns of HCMC Street Children in 2000
North West
Provinces
0.6%

Hanoi
0.6%

Cambodia
0.6%

North Central
Provinces
9.8%

Don't know
0.6%
Mekong delta
24.6%

CentralProvinces
11.6%

South Central
Provinces
16.6%

North East
Provinces
16.6%
HCMC
16.6%

Source: Terre des hommes Foundation (2004).

11

In the survey of Buom and Caseley conducted in Hanoi in 1995, the largest number ofinterviewed children came from Thanh Hoa province (27%). Children from Hai Hung(now split to Hai Duong and Hung Yen) ranked second (21%). Children from Hanoi
itself (17%) and Ha Nam (14%) followed.
Similarly with HCMC, the hometowns of street children in Hanoi have shifted somewhat
and become more diversified after nine years. The latest distribution of hometowns isshown in Figure 6.
These two surveys confirm what is well known among those working with street children
in Hanoi. The majority of working children come from rural areas and, among them,Thanh Hoa sends the largest number6. Even in 2004, the survey could not detect any
street children whose native land is in the south of the country7.
On the contrary, HCMC as the economic hub of Vietnam attracts far more economic
migrant workers than Hanoi. There are even some Hanoian and Cambodian children
working in the streets of HCMC (0.6 % each) while in Hanoi we observe no street
children from HCMC or foreign countries.
Figure 5. Hometowns of Hanoi Street Children in 1995

Nghe An
2%Other Northern
Provinces
16%

Thanh Hoa27%

Hoa Binh
3%

Ha Nam14%
Hai Hung
21%
Hanoi
17%

Source: Buom and Caseley (1996).

6

Thanh Hoa is a poor coastal province in the south of Hanoi. It is traditional for Thanh Hoa people to leave
hometown for big cities to make a living. Three villages (Quang Hai, Quang Thai and Quang Loi) areparticularly “famous” as the homes of many migrants to Hanoi as well as to HCMC.
7
In the southern provinces, if a child has to leave home for urban working life, he or she always goes to
HCMC because this city is not only nearer and transportation is more convenient but also there is a mindset
among rural people to favor HCMC over any other cities.

12

Figure 6. Hometowns of Hanoi Street Children in 2004
Hai Phong4%

Other Northern
Provinces
12%

Thanh Hoa
24%

Lang Son
4%
Thai Binh
4%
Phu Tho12%

Nghe An
7%
Bac Giang
7%

Hung Yen
9%
Ha Nam9%

Nam Dinh
8%

Source: VDF survey (2004).

3.4. What do they do?
Generally speaking, jobs that street children undertake most frequently include
scavenging, shoe shining, street vending, begging, selling lottery tickets or lottery results,
pick-pocketing, and pilfering in the market (in this study we also include illegal activities
as “jobs”). Here again, however, we see some differences and trends according to gender,
age, location, and survey years.
The most popular jobs for boys are shoe shining, selling lottery tickets, pick-pocketing,and market portering. Meanwhile, girls often engage in selling lottery tickets and street
vending. Small children often start with begging and waste scavenging because they are
too young to do physically demanding works like portering. Older children like to work
as street vendors after they gain certain street life experience. Many of them do more than
two jobs at the same time.
The next two diagrams show the occupational distribution of street children in HCMC in
1992 and 2000.

13

Figure 7. Occupations of HCMC Children in 1992
100%
90%
80%
70%

10%

16%

13%

41%

14%

Pickpocketing

36%

60%

Pilfering

50%

Street vending

23%

20%

40%

Begging

30%
9%

20%

Scavenging

36%

28%

Portering

18%

10%
0%
Group AGroup B

Group C

LonersStreet family

Sleeping
at home

Source: Terre des hommes Foundation (2004).

Figure 8. Occupations of HCMC Children in 2000
100%
90%
80%

7.2%
18.2%

20.2%

44.5%

Shoe shining

70%
60%

8.7%

Pickpocketing

36.4%

61.4%

50%
30%

Pilfering

21.9%

40%

Scavenging

20%
10%

18.2%

0%
Group A
LonersStreet vending

22.7%

38.5%

Lottery selling

17.2%

16.9%

9.4%

9.6%

Group B

Group CGroup D

Street family

Working
at risk

Migrant children

Source: Terre des hommes Foundation (2004).

14

BeggingThere is a current boom in the selling lottery tickets and shoe shining in HCMC, neitherof which existed in the 1992 survey. On the other hand, there is a significant decrease inbegging since that time.
The most common jobs among street boys in Hanoi are shoe shining and lottery result
sales. Scavenging and street vending are jobs that girls often do. The survey in 1992
identified top five jobs for working children, namely, begging (9%), scavenging (14%),street vending (23%), shoe shining (29%) and hand labor (20%).
The two recent surveys in Hanoi, the one conducted in 2003 (Committee of Population,
Family and Children, 2003ab) and the other conducted by VDF in 2004, also confirm thatthese occupations are the most popular ones.

Figure 9. Occupations of Hanoi Street Children in 1992 and 2003

100%

5%

6%

90%

9%

8%

80%

14%

9%

5%

70%
60%

20%

21%

Begging
Scavenging

50%
40%

OthersHand labor

23%

Street vending

30%

51%

Shoe shining

20%
10%

29%

0%
1992

2003

Sources: Buom and Caseley (1996) and unpublished data of the Committee ofPopulation, Family and Children in Hanoi (2003).

3.5 A note on lottery tickets
Although the occupations of street children in HCMC and Hanoi mostly overlap, some
jobs undertaken by HCMC children are rarely seen in Hanoi, and vice versa. One
example is seen in lottery business.

15

In HCMC, lottery ticket sale is a very popular job for children of every age. The lottery
ticket sales system is more “developed” in HCMC with a large number of lottery agentsorganizing child sellers. The adult sales agents receive lottery tickets from the stateowned lottery company and redistribute them to children. The adult agents bear thebusiness risk and refunds children for the unsold portion of lottery tickets at the end of
the day. These organizers sometimes provide children with food and sleeping quarters.
All profits from selling the lottery tickets belong to the children.
In Hanoi, lottery tickets are sold by small-scale adult agents along streets. No child is
involved as there is no organization to mobilize street children to sell lottery tickets.
However, the announcement of lottery ticket results is more “exciting” than in HCMC.
Every day from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm, hundreds of children gather at the lottery result
centers in Tang Bat Ho Street and Hue Street. They record the results, carbon copy them,and run as fast as they can to every lane and corner of Hanoi to sell them. While eachresult sheet costs only 500 VND, a child with quick feet can earn 10,000 VND per day on
average. In HCMC no child sells lottery ticket results since the results are provided freeof charge by any lottery agent right after the results are announced.

4. New Typology Based on Causes and Situations
While the existing classifications of street children, such as the one proposed by the Terredes hommes Foundation (Table 1), are operationally useful in conducting surveys, weneed a more structured classification for further analysis. In this section we propose a
new typology of street children based on the distinction between causes and situations,and the relationship between them. In considering the situations, it is necessary toseparately discuss current deprivation (poverty, health problems, emotional crisis, and soon) and the lack of future investment (education, training, job prospects, and so on).
4.1. Causes
The causes of driving school-age children to the street can be divided into three maingroups which we shall call broken family, mindset problem, and economic migration.
While these causes are mutually related and overlapping, the main cause can usually be
identified for each street child. It is necessary to clearly distinguish them for deeper
analysis and proper design of intervention, as we will see below.
Group I: broken family
This group includes children with extremely difficult family situations such as beingorphaned or abandoned as a result of the death, divorce or separation of the parents,
becoming a victim of domestic violence or sexual abuse, and the like. This is the
traditional cause of street children which exists in any developing country with or without
economic growth.

16

The increasing number of divorce is a pressing issue in the Vietnam society, of whichchildren are always the first victims. The disintegration of the family is a great shock tothem even if one of the parents continues to take care of them. Children abandoned as aresult of parents’ divorce have to undergo an even greater emotional shock. Being left
with relatives or grandparents, such children are easily discouraged from study and lured
by bad friends. Psychological damage is particularly severe when a child loses one orboth of the parents when it is very young.
There are approximately 120,000 abandoned children all over the country. Anotherestimate says that 3.4% of abandoned children are street children. This means that morethan 4,000 abandoned children are roaming in the street8. From another angle, the recent
survey of the Committee of Population, Family and Children in Hanoi (2004) discoveredthat 12.3% of the interviewed children were from a broken family.
Domestic violence is a controversial topic that attracts much attention. There are a variety
of definitions and opinions concerning domestic violence. Outdated feudal ideas stillpermeate in the relationship between husband and wife as well as between parents andchildren. Feudal ideology remains relatively more strongly among rural people. In such acase, family quarrels are common. The majority, both women and men, agree that if thewife does something wrong, the husband has the right to slap her. They believe that, by
doing so, the husband is fulfilling the role of the head of the family and the role of a man.
Domestic violence takes many forms from physical violence such as beating to
psychological violence such as scolding, threatening, and making quarrels. Many
children leave home because they cannot bear the domestic violence inflicted on them.
The most common situations include being beaten by a drunk father or being scoldedvery severely when a child has done something wrong.
Most of the street children who have left home because of domestic violence arespiritually and emotionally impaired. While in-depth scientific research on the effects ofdomestic violence on the psychology of street children is lacking, this cause is mentioned
in every survey on street children.
Group II: mindset problem
This is a case where the family enjoys relatively unbroken relations and an average—orat least not so destitute—standard of living but still sends children to work in the street
due to the wrong attitude of the parents or the children themselves.
Some children leave home because they are lured by friends or because they want tosavor freedom instead of going to school. Seemingly exciting life in big cities and friends
who already know the street life are the pulling force. For such children, earning money
is not the main purpose. Naturally, they easily succumb to social evils like heroin,
prostitution, and juvenile delinquency.
8“MOLISA data for 2001” as quoted in Committee of Population, Family and Children in Hanoi (2004).

17However, the mindset problem most often arises on the parent side. Some parents thinkthat cash income is more important than children’s education. The temptation ofluxurious life breeds and reinforces the wrong attitude of the parents. By preventing theirkids from going to school and forcing them to work hard for the family, they become anegative constraint on the children’s development. It is observed that some parents tradechildren’s future for nice furniture, electronic appliances or a new house today.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a positive correlation between rapid economic growth
and the wrong attitude of adults. When the living standard improves day by day, this typeof street children tend to increase.
Group III: economic migration
Children who are forced by dire poverty to migrate to urban areas to earn a living belong
to this group. Here, the main cause of migration is economic. The important feature ofthis group is that the parents do not want their sons or daughters to drop out of school andtake to the street, but they feel there is no other choice given their economic situation.
The children themselves often want to continue schooling as well. What is important in
identifying this group is not whether the child has both parents or only one parent, butwhether or not family bond and consideration for children’s future exist. With proper
love, even children raised by only one parent or grandparents will retain the right attitude
toward education.
There is no doubt that family poverty is one of the major causes of street children. Due tofamily poverty, children cannot study and play, lose the care or protection of a guardian,and have to work long hours in unfriendly places. In every survey discussed in Section 3
above, more than 70% of the street children answered that they were working in the street
because of their family poverty.
Poverty may be the result of a natural disaster, the death or desertion of a bread earner,
job loss, illness, injury, divorce, separation, the death of livestock, crop failure, theft,increase in dependents, and so on. Some of these overlap with the problem of broken
family discussed above while others are beyond the control of the household. When theyoccur, poverty and hunger become inevitable.
4.2. Situations
Each street child is different. Apart from the initial cause that drives the child out onto thestreet, their life and working styles vary greatly. It is important to clearly distinguish theirsituations because their needs and required assistance also vary greatly with theirsituations. This paper proposes to divide the situations that street children face into twodimensions, namely, the degrees of current protection and investment for future. For all
deprived people, current protection is of utmost concern for the respect for human dignity
and ensuring the minimum standard of life. But for children, investment in their future isequally—or even more—crucial.

18

Current Protection
Current protection refers to whether or not the child is protected physically and mentally
against various risks now so that his or her daily life is not excessively miserable orthreatened. This further breaks down into several contributing factors such as:
1. Physical health (injury, sickness, malnutrition, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS,
physical disability, etc)
2. Mental health (fear, lack of love, trauma, lack of concentration or discipline,
mental disability, etc)
3. Assault risk (bullied, beaten, tortured, raped, detained, sold, etc)
4. Job hazard (engaged in an “at risk” job—see Table 1 above)
5. Financial shocks (family needs medicine, being cheated, money is stolen, finedby police, etc.)
6. Shelter (sleep under a roof or outside)
7. Adult protection and guidance (parent, guardian, NGO, etc.)
8. Group protection (work and live in group or alone)
The first two (1, 2) describe the present condition of the child while the next three (3, 4,5) measure the degree of uncontrollable risk to which he or she is subjected. The
remaining three factors (6, 7, 8) help the child to avoid potential problems or deal
effectively with the problems that have arisen. While these factors may improve or
deteriorate simultaneously, they are in principle separate and can take different values foreach child. We can say that the child is well protected against imminent risks if thesefactors are all favorable, and conversely if they are poor in every direction9.
Future Investment
Another key element in gauging the welfare of children is whether they are receiving
adequate education or training in preparation for the future. Without investment in humancapital, children cannot expect any bright future or realize any dream, even if they are
well fed and protected today. Naturally, therefore, this should be the second dimension in
defining their situation. With adequate knowledge and skill, children will have a muchgreater chance of escaping the current misery through finding a stable and safer job. At
the same time, this prospect gives them hope, encouragement, and a new meaning to their
tough life at present.
More specifically, future investment can take several forms. If the child has been out ofschool for a few years or less, returning to formal schooling should be seriously
considered. The child should study at least up to the 12th grade and be given a chance to
go to a university if warranted. If this option is not feasible, private tutoring by volunteer
teachers and classes offered by NGOs may substitute. For those who have been out of
9

The Terre des homes Foundation uses some of these situational factors (job hazard, shelter, adultprotection) along with what we call causes (broken family, street family (mindset problem), economic
migration), in its classification of street children in Table 1 above. In this paper, we prefer to treat causes
and situations differently.

19

school for a long time and no longer have the aptitude to study for many years, vocational
training of shorter duration should be provided. Among general skills, English andcomputer are very popular among aspiring street children. But they should be combinedwith more specific vocational training which fits the characteristics of each child. Equallyimportant but frequently neglected is the need to link vocational training to actual jobs.
Guidance and assistance in job search are crucial in determining whether learned skills
are used productively or wasted.
There are some factors that impede the child’s investment for the future. The first andperhaps the most common is the financial factor. Most classes and training programs
require a fee. If the fee is out of reach of the child, he or she is not able to attend.
The second is the time constraint. Even if a course is offered for free, the child still facesa tradeoff between work and knowledge because of the opportunity cost related to time.
If the child goes to school, he or she will earn less on the street. Similarly, if the course
takes a long time, in terms of hours per day or duration in months or years, the child isless likely to choose to attend—unless sufficient compensation is offered to cover the lostworking time. In this sense, financial and time constraints are related.
Third, many street children simply lack the discipline and patience needed to attend acourse. The longer they have been on the street, the more so.
Fourth, another important factor is the encouragement (or lack of it) from the community
surrounding the child. If the child’s friends begin to attend a class, he or she is more
likely to attend it too. Among fellow street children, the contagion effect is usually very
powerful. Similarly, the child will attend classes more regularly if they receive constantencouragement from their parents or adult acquaintances. On the contrary, however, if
the parents positively discourage the child from studying, an obedient child may easily
follow this advice. The objection of an unwilling parent is one of the biggest obstacles insending street children to school or a training program.
4.3 Correlation and dynamism between causes and situations
Typical situations and aspirations
While all street children face the risky situations of street life, the kind and degree ofrisks they have to cope with differ significantly depending on the initial cause of
becoming street children.
Children from a broken family (Group I) are least protected against current risks andwithout investment opportunities. Their life situation is often much tougher than street
children of other groups. The risks of drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, assault, abuse, sexual
exploitation and other serious troubles are much higher with this group even if they try toprotect themselves by roaming and sleeping together (and much worse if they are alone).
Similarly—and regrettably—the risk of becoming a promoter of social evil rather than its
victim is also high. These children are rarely seen to be going to school or receiving

20

vocational training on their own. With a prolonged rough life, they have become
streetwise and often lost the discipline and patience required to keep regular time andstudy hard. They are stuck at the lower left corner of Figure 10 and can hardly escape thesituation without proper and dedicated intervention.
Figure 10. Current Protection and Future Investment

High

NormalChild

GROUP II

Current protection

Mindset
Problem

GROUP III

Economic
Migration

GROUP I

Low

BrokenFamilyLow

Future Investment

High

Note: The vertical and horizontal axes represent the two dimensions of the situation ofstreet children. On the other hand, groups classify street children by their causes. The
solid arrow indicates the aspiration of each group while the dashed arrow indicates
unexpected setbacks.

Children who drop out of school due to the wrong attitude of the parents (Group II) areless deprived, relatively speaking, in the current situation than the first group since theirparents can look after them. They are relatively well fed and protected. It is rare to seethem severely victimized by street gangs or even joining them. The biggest problem withthis group, however, is the strong opposition of the parents when someone (teacher,social worker, or the children themselves) proposes an education or training program forthem. Migrating families work hard to move up from the lower left corner to the upper
left corner of the diagram, but they do not invest in the children’s future10.
Children who migrate for economic reasons (Group III) face least difficulty incomparison with the other two groups, provided that their family ties are basically intact
and children retain the right attitude and a strong desire for studying and improving life.
10

One NGO assisting street children in Hanoi reports the case of a boy whose parents forbid him to go toschool. Driven by the love of learning, he ran away from home to work and study in Hanoi.

21

Their main or only reason for joining the street life is economic. They often have close
contacts with people from the native village and rent a room with previous neighbors.
Collective protection provides them with an adequate risk sharing mechanism against thecontingencies of falling ill, running out of money, and the like. Moreover, they are oftenvery eager to return to school or learn useful skills for the future if the opportunity arises,
and some actually go to school by their own. Their parents normally support their
aspiration. Children in this group are equipped with the right attitude and incentive to
move not only vertically (upward) but also horizontally (rightward) in Figure 10.
If each street child is given a score between 1 and 10 in the degree of current protection
and future investment respectively, his or her situation may be identified with a locationin this diagram. Contributing factors to current protection include physical and mental
health, assault risk, job security, financial situation, shelter, adult protection, and groupprotection as explained above. Contributing factors to future investment include the statusof schooling, training, access to job information, and proper guidance and counseling byprofessionals. By giving these scores to street children, it is possible to quantify theirplight, identify the group to which they belong, and devise the way to guide them toward
the right paths.
However, such measurement also has limitations especially with respect to comparison
and aggregation. Two variables may not be able to capture the complexity of the situationeach child faces. For example, even if two children score the same in current protection,
the first child may have good health but little parental protection, and conversely with thesecond child. Having the same score does not mean that they suffer from the sameproblem or need the same intervention. This warning also applies to the scoring in future
investment. Additionally, it is difficult to decide how much weight each factor should
receive in constructing such a score. Is job security and shelter equally important? Should
formal schooling be given more points than vocational training? Or should all factors
receive one point each? This is a conundrum which defies an easy solution. Any scoring
system must therefore resort to some tentative convention.
Even so, giving numerical scores to the situation of each street child may be a good firststep toward an objective quantification of his or her plight, supplementing narrativedescription.
Setbacks
While Group I children are stuck at the lower left corner of Figure 10, Group II children(with their parents) attempt to climb upward, and Group III children want to move closer
to the bliss point in the upper right corner where current protection and future investment
are both available. But these movements are frequently interrupted by uncontrollable
negative shocks which tend to pull the children back to where they started, or worse.
These setbacks are indicated in dashed arrows in Figure 10.
Accidental setbacks occur at two levels: individual shocks and macro (or societal) shocks.
Shocks that befall on the child or its family partly overlap with those that initially sent
them to the street. They include family problems, financial hardship, sickness, injury,
22

assaults, psychological crisis, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, arrest and detention, and so on.
By contrast, macro shocks affect a broad segment of the society but hit vulnerable groups(including street children) particularly harshly—for example, natural disasters, economic
recession, fluctuation in tourism, bird flu and other epidemics, international events that
require clean streets, seasonal business fluctuations, and so on. While street children must
cope with both shocks, different groups are impacted differently.
These shocks have immediate and heavily negative influences on Group I children who
are already suffering from the worst situation. This is because they lack the knowledge to
avoid such shocks as well as the risk sharing mechanism to ameliorate the shocks once
they occur. As a consequence, they are more vulnerable to sickness, injury, financial
hardship, and so forth, and more susceptible to the temptation of social evils. They arecaught in a hopeless trap.
Children in Groups II and III are better off in the sense that they have more protection
and guidance from the parent or the group to which they belong. But such protection andguidance are neither perfect nor available for all contingencies. If the shock becomes
uncontrollable for the child (or its friends or parents), there will be a slippage towardeither downward or leftward, or both. The child may become hungry or sick, and may
even quit studying. In the worst case, it may lose the family or group protection andmigrate to Group I.

5. Former Street Children: Where Are They Now?
There is no survey which systematically tracks the same children over the years. The
number of street children is reported every year and many surveys are conducted todescribe the situation at any one point in time, but no study seriously asks the question
like: what happens to today’s street children when they grow older, whether surveyedchildren are the same individuals examined in previous surveys, or how many of thechildren of former street children become a new generation of street children. This papershares the same weakness as other studies 11 . However, we hope to provide some
anecdotal evidence on the long-term aspect of the street children problem so that thereader can sense the breadth of the problem. Information below is acquired throughpersonal contacts that the authors have had in Hanoi and HCMC since the mid 1990s.
Paths traveled by street children to adulthood vary greatly from one child to another.
Some youths graduate from the status of precarious hand-to-mouth living to a respectablecareer in the formal sector. This is achieved through self-effort, good luck, and assistancefrom people who recognize their latent talent. On the other hand, it is hardly deniable that11

One way to track the growth of children consistently is to analyze the records kept by shelters whichhouse former street children until they reach the age of 17 or even above. There are many domestic andforeign organizations that provide such assistance in Vietnam. However, such data may suffer from thewinners’ bias since only the relatively successful children are admitted to shelters. There are also many
children these shelters do not accept because their conditions are too difficult to manage and theiradmission would have an undesirable effect on other children.

23

some unfortunate adolescents fall deeper and deeper into trouble until they destroy
themselves or become menace to the society. But the majority of street children seem togrow into street adults without meeting a brilliant success or a dreadful end. Lacking
education and a stable job, they continue to work in the street, manage to make a living,get married, and raise a family while coping with the same risk and uncertainty of street
life they have known for a long time. Whether the children of such street adults will also
become street children is an important determining factor of the street children problem
in the future. Many street adults genuinely desire to send their kids to school andterminate the generational vicious circle, but whether they can actually do so depends
mainly on their financial situation.
As expected from the discussion of Section 4, Group I children have the least chance tomove up in the long run. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to see Group III children
achieve academic and professional success. The prospects of Group II children lie
between these two cases. Below, six actual cases are presented for illustration. Each caseis classified into one of the three groups according to the most important cause for street
life. As noted earlier, however, the three causes overlap and interact with each other. The
classification here should be taken as only indicative. The age shown below is according
to the western calendar as of end 2004.
Miss A—Group I (broken family), age 19
The father of Miss A was a landless farmer in Hung Yen. He married three wives
consecutively. Miss A and his elder brother are the children of his third wife. She also
had one younger brother but he was “stolen” in his infancy and she says that is why her
mother became a little crazy. Miss A has one living half-sister whom she met only once.
When Miss A was very young, the family traveled extensively in Vietnam to beg
including HCMC, Hue and Hai Phong. In the past, the poor often traveled free by train.
But she does not remember much about these days.
In 1995, when Miss A was ten years old, the family “settled down” in Hanoi. They slept
outside the Big Church and continued to beg. The municipal cleaning workers sometimes
invited them to take shelter in their make-shift house while they were at work. A foreign
priest helped Miss A to go to school up to the sixth grade. Her parents were often caught
by police and detained. At one time, she was sent to live with an unmarried young couple.
The lady there forced her to sell postcards near Hoan Kiem Lake and inhale an illegal
drug. Since then, Miss A has been addicted to heroin.
The family subsequently moved to a humble shack in an area of Hanoi inhabited bymigrants from outer provinces. Miss A continued to sell in the street, her mothercollected waste, and her elder brother was a shoe shiner as well as a thief. Many
individuals and NGOs tried to help her without much success. Recently, the father’s
health deteriorated significantly while being detained at Ba Vi for four years. Miss A
struggled to obtain necessary official documents and stamps to get him out.

24In early 2004, her father was released from Ba Vi for the reason of terminal weakness.
After he passed away and her mother and brother were again caught by the police andsent to Ba Vi, Miss A became homeless. She began to sleep alone outside, wear tatteredclothes, and eat the leftover food of others. She fell and injured herself and could nolonger go to Hoan Kiem Lake to earn money. She admits that she still can earn money tobuy heroin by herself becoming a drug pusher. Although she sometimes tries hard to
escape from her fate, hard circumstances and deep psychological wounds have made her
distrustful of others. Her stubbornness as well as the lack of future investment makes it
extremely difficult for anyone to help her.
Miss B—Group II (economic migration), age 25
When Miss B was eight years old, her parents were divorced and she and her younger
sister were sent to live with the grandmother. She went to school in the morning andworked as a baby sitter and house maid in the afternoon. Although she was a very good
student and a monitor at school, she had to drop out at the fifth grade because her family
was too poor to pay the school fee. Two months later, she left the village for Hanoi with
50,000 dong in her pocket. Since then, she has been working in Hanoi for twelve years.
At first, she bought miscellaneous things in Dong Xuan Market and sold them in thestreets. Two years later, she began to study English and simultaneously go to Nguyen
Van To school with the help of one foreigner. While continuing to sell in the street, Miss
B attended evening classes. To save money, she spent only 1,000 dong on bread for her
daily food.
After shifting from one job to another, Miss B became a receptionist at a mini hotel in the
Old Quarter of Hanoi. She was very quick to learn new work and gain experience. Her
English was better than any other street children. Recognizing her potential, anotherforeigner offered to be a business partner to open a mini hotel of her own. It met withimmediate success. Currently, Miss B is a manager of two mini hotels, both of which areprofitable.
Miss B was an economic migrant who did not want to quit school to become a street kid
in the first place. Although her parents were divorced, she had spiritual support of her
mother and grandmother. She also had an insatiable desire and determination to become
an entrepreneur. External financial support was the only thing she needed to realize her
dream.
Miss C—Group III (mindset problem), age 18
Miss C and her mother are from a village in Tien Giang, but they usually stay in a rented
room in HCMC and sell coconuts in the heart of the city. Miss C has no father but has
one brother who is also a coconut seller. She cannot say clearly when she dropped out ofschool. The mother and the daughter sell chilled coconuts together from early morning tolate night or until all merchandise is sold. Sales are better on hot days and they rest on

25

rainy days. Carrying dozens of coconuts weighing up to 30 kilograms is a tough job for ayoung girl. Like other sellers, Miss C is very good at running from police.
Initially, Miss C spoke only Vietnamese with strong southern accents. Her writing waspoor. But soon she picked up fragments of various languages, including English, German
and Japanese, from foreigners. She likes to throw dirty words at them. Some foreigners
like to take her and her friends on a day trip to Mekong. On major holidays like Tet or
when major events are held in HCMC, they return to Tien Giang to rest. Their house issimple and decent, and has a TV and a video machine. Miss C hopes to get married witha German boy.
A local NGO in HCMC has tried to send her to an informal English class. A modest
financial sum was introduced to compensate for the lost sales as the mother was unsure of
the benefit of letting Miss C receive education. Many of her seller friends studied hardand subsequently received assistance in job training and placement, but Miss C skippedclasses frequently and finally dropped out. After Seagames 22, it became increasingly
difficult to sell in the central districts of HCMC and the NGO sometimes loses track of
the family.
Mr. D—Group II (economic migration), age 26 if alive
The father of Mr. D passed away in 1990. Mr. D had no brother or sister. Leaving his
mother in Ha Tay, he came to Hanoi in the early 1990s to sell postcards to foreign
tourists. Although he had a few friends among boy sellers, he was basically alone in his
work and life since he was the only one from his village. He picked up English on thestreet as well as received modest assistance from foreigners to go to English courses. He
also went to the driving school but could not complete the lesson due to the lack ofmoney. He did not receive any consistent training to get a stable job, so he continued tosell postcards. He was caught by police and sent to the detention center a few times.
In 1999 he married a seller girl whom he knew for a long time, but his life remained as
hard as before. He was addicted to heroin and gradually lost his weight and health. Twoyears ago, his friends reported his death. The cause was pneumonia related to his drug
addiction.
Mrs. E—Group II (economic migration), age 23
In the mid 1990s, Mrs. E came from a village to sell postcards to foreigners in the Hoan
Kiem Lake area and send money monthly to her parents. She has both parents and threesiblings. Her family is poor but not desperately poor in the village. She dropped out ofschool after the fifth grade and never returned to formal schooling. Since she was in alarge group of young female sellers from the same village, she sold and slept with themin a rented room. She received foreigners’ help in going to English and sewing classes.
Her English improved, but she was not successful in finding a stable job.

26

As the police crackdown on street vendors intensified over the years, she switched to T
shirt sales away from the Hoan Kiem Lake area. In 1999 he married a boy from thevillage next to hers and had a baby in the following year. Now Mrs. E and her husband
sell T shirts together on a motorbike all around Hanoi. The couple is still poor but happy
with each other. However, Mrs. E realizes that their occupation is too unstable with thepossibility of official arrest, and wants to find better jobs for herself and her husband. At
present, she is seeking financial help from others to send her husband to a driving school.
She herself is thinking of opening a small shop but people around her warn that it is arisky move if the shop fails.
Mrs. E feels it unfair that honest sellers like her are often detained together with thieves,prostitutes, drug addicts and pushers, and other criminals. These sellers are doing what isnecessary to survive with no evil intention on the society, she says. Another injustice she
can hardly bear is the fact that rich detainees are released soon while poor people like her
must do full time at the detention center. But she knows that her protestation is unlikely
to be heard.
Mr. F—Group II (economic migration), age 22
Mr. F also came from the country side in a group to sell postcards in the Hoan Kiem Lake
area in 1998. His father died and his mother remarried, so he and his younger sister wereplaced under the care of the grandparents. Although his case may be classified as Group I(broken family), group protection and the existence of grandparents provided some initial
security against urban risks.
In the first few years of selling, Mr. F had no future plan; he did not know what hewanted to learn or do. However, as street life became increasingly difficult due to thepolicy of cleaning up urban centers, he began to think seriously about the next step. After
studying travel guidebooks by himself, he became an unofficial tour guide for foreign
backpackers. He also sought help for getting a driver’s license (he received the money
but sent it to the grandparents instead of going to the driving school).
Mr. F was caught by police this summer. Since he tested positive in heroin, he is now
detained in one of the drug addiction centers in Ba Vi. People like him can be locked up
for as many as two years. Some say that this is not too bad for him since he can be treatedand has something to eat there. But all agree that many former addicts start using heroin
again upon release. His sister, who married another seller recently, sometimes visits him
in Ba Vi.
5.2. How to guide street children towards the right paths
The solution to the street children problem, which must be detailed and realistic, needs tobe discussed in full elsewhere. This section only presents some general suggestions
which can be obtained directly from the above analysis. Three mutually related points are
given below.

27

First, a proper mix of current protection and future investment should be available to eachstreet child. The program to create appropriate conditions must be designed and provided
strategically and systematically for each street child. This requires deep understanding
and rich experience regarding the street children problem. Assistance should not becasual or ad hoc.
Second, for every group of street children, proper external intervention is required since it
is very difficult for the child alone to overcome the barriers to progress. Even in a
relatively “easy” case of Group III (economic migrants) with appropriate mindset, likeMiss B above, help from foreigners and fellow Vietnamese were indispensable. For
children in Groups I and II, external assistance is even more necessary for guiding them
toward the right paths.
Third, for good intervention, analysis and planning based on an effective classification ofstreet children is crucial. As mentioned earlier, street children are not homogeneous. Eachchild faces a different situation and requires a different help. Assistance must be
consistent with the type and needs of children. Partial or unsuitable support will not only
fail to achieve results but also waste the time and money of the supporters.
In this regard, Group I (broken family) is most difficult to assist. Children in this group
generally lack necessary attitude and discipline. Therefore, they require all-round, longterm and customized commitment, encouragement, and patience on the part of help
providers for both current protection and future investment, and for physical and mental
assistance.
The main barrier for children in Group II (mindset problem) is parent’s psychology. As
this is difficult to change even with constant persuasion, a special tactic to provide
children with an education opportunity is needed. This may require financial incentive forthe parent or even temporary separation of the child from the parent. If the children
themselves also have the wrong mindset, it is even more difficult to assist them.
Street children in Group III (economic migrants) need financial assistance. Unlike othergroups, they are more often equipped with good motivation and family encouragement toovercome the poverty trap. For them, main assistance can be financial supplemented byproper counseling and monitoring. While they are the least difficult group to help, carefulselection is extremely important. Not all Group III children are honest or highly
motivated, so the time and money of the supporters should be allocated to the mostserious candidates.

6. Concluding Remarks
The plight of street children in Vietnam is at an early stage in comparison with more“developed” neighboring countries like Thailand. Many street children in Thailand
organize gang groups and often have to resort to violence to survive. In Vietnam, bycontrast, mafia-like crime groups of street children are relatively rare. Here, street

28

children just produce a feeling of pity and sadness in the minds of general public rather
than strong fear and repulsion. If there are some street kids involved in social evils, we
often consider them as the victims of those evils rather than evil makers. We need toeffectively tackle the street children problem in Vietnam as soon as possible before it
develops into the situation like Thailand.
Studying the interactions of old and new causes in a growing economy is just the starting
point of street children research. For simplicity, we did not want to raise too many issues
or questions in this paper although the reality is far more complex. Before closing, we
would like to leave a few suggestions for further study. Street children themselves andmany social program coordinators agree that there are two important issues that must be
addressed seriously. First, there is a need to strengthen our skill in providing counselingwork to the children in guiding each child to the right path. Second, after receiving
certain education or training, children need additional help in applying their acquired
knowledge to the real situation. A training program or a short course is not sufficient.
They need more incentive and assistance to secure a stable job and build a family—tolive a normal life in the society.

29References
English:Gallina, Andrea, Pietro Masina, Street children in Vietnam an inquiry into the roots ofpoverty and survival livelihood strategies, Federico Caffè Centre Research Report n.
3/2002 (A Report for ASIA URBS Project No. VNM 007 co-financed by the European
Union), (2002).
Nguyen Van Buom and Jonathan Caseley, Survey on the Situation of Street Children in
Hanoi, Youth Research Institute, (1996).
Save the Children UK, Young lives Preliminary Country Report: Vietnam (2003).
Terre des hommes Foundation, Children of the Dust in Ho Chi Minh City (1992).
Terre des hommes Foundation, A Study on Street Children in Ho Chi Minh City (2004).
West, Andrew, At the Margins: Street Children in Asia and the Pacific, AsianDevelopment Bank (2003).
Vietnamese:
Committee of Population, Family and Children, Information Center, Kết quả khảo sáttình hình trẻ em lang thang tại Hà Nội và Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (2003).
Committee of Population, Family and Children, Information Center, Báo cáo khảo sáttình hình trẻ em lang thang tại Hà Nội và Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (2003).
Committee of Population, Family and Children, Báo cáo tình hình trẻ em lang thang trênđịa bàn Hà Nội (2004).
General Statistics Office, General Statistical Report 1999.
General Statistics Office, General Statistical Report 2004.

National Assembly of Vietnam, Luật bảo vệ, chăm sóc và giáo dục trẻ em,
25/2004/QH11 (2004).
VDF, Điều tra về trẻ đường phố tại Hà Nội (2004), (unpublished)
Related websites (English):http://www.chula.ac.th/INSTITUTE/ARCM/child5.htm
http://www.unicef.org/vietnam/street.htm

30http://www.streetfriends.org/CONTENT/background/what_are_sc.html
http://www.vwam.com/vets/children/introduction.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/data/dataquery.html

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