NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
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DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS ESSAY

TOPIC

CHILD MARRIAGE IN VIETNAM

Teacher:Mr.NGUYEN VAN DAI

Class :Development Economics (118)_9

Group :5

HANOI OCTOBER 2018

MEMBERS OF GROUP 5

1.Tran Quang Truong

2.Trinh Thuy Van

3.Luong Dieu Huong

4.Ngo Thi Chinh

5.Dang Thi Ha

6.Nguyen Thu Loan

7.Pham Ngoc Mai

 ESSAY INDEX

I.INTRODUCTION

II.LITERATURE REVIEW

1.Definition of child marriage and early marriage

2.Causes of Child Marriage in Viet Nam

3.The Impact of Child Marriage on Victims and Society

III.CASE STUDIES AND DISCUSSION

1.Vietnamese Law on Child Marriage

2.Case studies/articles relating to Child Marriage in Viet Nam

IV.CONCLUTION
I.INTRODUCTION

Today’s youth plays an irreplaceable part in the socio-economic development of

Vietnam. Early marriage means a higher risk of mortality for both mother and
child, and takes away many career opportunities for boys and girls. Though the
government of Vietnam has set a minimum age for marriage, the number of early
marriages has been increasing over recent years.

The status of underage marriages varies in 63 provinces and cities, mostly in

mountainous provinces. Child marriage is a tradition taking place in some remote
areas, mainly occurs in three regions: the Northwest, the Central Highlands and the
Southwest. Up to 40 of the 53 ethnic minorities have child marriage rates of 20%
or more, while 6 minorities have child marriage rates of 50 to 60%. In recent years,
the authorities concerned with this situation have been promoted by the provinces.
The rate of child marriage is remarkably high in ethnic minorities living in the
northern midlands and mountainous, the Central Highlands, some central provinces
and the Mekong Delta. The average rate of child marriage in ethnic minorities is
26.6 percent, 18 times higher than the rate in the Kinh majority (1.4 percent) and
10 times higher than the national rate (2.5 percent). The first result was that the
status of underage marriage decreased markedly. However, in some remote areas,
this rate tends to increase.

According to data from the Department of Population-Family Planning in Son La

province, from 2016 until now, this province has about 500 pairs of child brides
and grooms .For some communes such as Long Luong (Moc Chau district), child
marriage rate is up to 52%, while in Van Ho (Van Ho district) the rate is 68%. All
these numbers are up in recent years. Only in 2015, Van Ho district had 100 child
marriages, 47 of which took place in the first 6 months.
The northern mountainous provinces have higher rates of child marriage than other
parts of the country. Between the ages of 10 and 17, one in ten boys has a wife and
5 girls have a husband. Provinces with high rates of early marriage are Lai Chau,
Ha Giang, Dien Bien, Son La, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Cao Bang, of which Lai Chau has
the highest rate of 18.6%.

According to statistics from the United Nations Population Fund in Viet Nam, the
world now has more than 700 million married women of child age. On average,
about one in every three women (about 250 million) is married before the age of
15. According to estimates by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the
number of women who are compelled to marry at an early age will increase from
the current 700 million girls up to 950 million girls in 2030.

Director of Ethnic Minorities Department (Ethnic Minorities Committee) Nguyen

Thi Tu said: "Child marriage takes place everywhere, from urban to rural and
mountainous areas. However, this situation is common in regions with difficult
economic conditions - ethnic minorities. The results of socio-economic survey of
53 ethnic minorities show that the status of underage marriage among ethnic
minorities is 26.6%. The percentage of underage marriages is highest in Mong,
Xinh Mun, La Ha, Gia Rai, Raglay, Bru, Van Kieu. The high rate of child marriage
means that many ethnic groups have poor households. This explains why Son La,
Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Ha Giang, Cao Bang and Yen Bai provinces are always in
the top of the country in terms of child marriage rates”.

Over the years, Vietnam has made a lot of efforts in addressing child marriage. The
2014 Marriage and Family Law and the Children's Law of 2016 banned early
marriage and activities related to the organization and support of child marriage.
By 2015, the Prime Minister has approved the project to reduce the number of
underage marriages between 2015 and 2025. The Law on Marriage and Family
requires that men and women can be married when they are at least 20 years old
and 18 years old. But in many localities, especially in areas where many ethnic
minorities live in poor living conditions, parents and clans still allow girls to get
married before they turn 18. Results from the survey of assessing the targets for
children and women in Vietnam in 2014 show that the proportion of young women
aged 15-19 years married or living together is 10.3%. Northern mountainous areas,
Mekong Delta and Central Highlands have high rates of early marriage.

II.LITERATURE REVIEW

1.Definition of child marriage and early marriage

The Committee on the Rights of the Child defines child marriage as any marriage
where at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age. The Committee urges
countries to set the minimum age for marriage for men and women (with or
without parental consent) to 18 years (File nos. CEDAW/C/GC/31-CRC/C/GC/18,
para 20 and CRC/GC/2003/4, para 20).

UNFPA and UNICEF define child marriage as ‘’a formal marriage or informal
union before age 18’’, thus also recognizing the importance of including non-
formal marriages or unions in this notion. Cohabitation - when a couple lives ‘in
union’, as if married – raises the same human rights concerns as child marriage.

In Viet Nam, early marriage is considered a marriage where one or both partners
have not reached the minimum legal age for marriage, which is 18 years for girls
and 20 years for boys (Art 8.(1) of the Law on Marriage and Family).
Taking the above into account and the context of Vietnam, this presentation uses
the term ‘’child marriage and early unions’’ to cover formal marriage and informal
union before the age of 18.

When the term ‘’early marriage’’ is used, it refers to the Vietnamese definition.

2.Causes of Child Marriage in Viet Nam

2.1. Gender inequality

In Vietnam, gender discrimination against women is rooted by a male-dominated

power structure. Traditionally, Vietnamese women and girls are seen as low value
and expected to take on domestic roles as wives, mothers and daughters. As a
result, daughters are considered temporary members of the family while sons are
expected to be leaders of the family, community and society. Adult sons usually
hold responsibility for caring for their parents, sharing a household with them and
they tend to inherit substantially more than daughters. Girls who are not married at
a young age may be stigmatized by the family and community. In the patrilineal
system, women are expected to marry young and move in their husband’s family,
have children, contribute to the household and join the family workforce.

2.2. Cultural norms and practices

Marriage is considered to be an important milestone in a child's life. In fact,

Vietnam has a long-standing traditional practice of parents arranging marriages for
their children. There is an illegal custom of hai pu (“pull wife”) or bride
kidnapping, which is regularly practiced in Hmong communities. The process
includes a boy kidnapping a girl without her or her family’s consent. Once the girl
is at the expectant husband’s home, his parents are forced to contact the girl’s
family, who can either ask to release her back to the family, or they can accept
their marriage. A bride price, to be paid by the boy’s family, is then negotiated.
Furthermore, a recent study found that, girls are afraid of being single and losing
opportunities to marry when they are older. They are afraid of “becoming old-
maids or ‘left over girls’”.

2.3. Poverty and economic survival strategies

Child marriage is closely tied to poverty and economic hardship. In traditional

societies, where infant mortality was very high and survival depended on a
family’s ability to produce food or goods for sale, child marriage helped to
maximize the number of pregnancies and ensure enough surviving children to meet
household labor needs. After getting married, women and girls are expected to help
their family-in-law to do domestic work and economic activities. And having a
large number of children, depending on the social norm, also provides a source of
social security for parents in their old age.

Child marriage is likely to reduce the costs of raising daughters. Marriage

arrangements and requirements, dowry payments in parts of South Asia where
parents of the young woman are obliged to give gifts to the man and his family,
perpetuate child marriage. This is because the dowry requirement often increases
with the age and the education level of the girl. Additionally, poor families tend to
marry off girls at the same time to help to reduce the burden of high marriage
ceremony expenses.

2.4. Low awareness of internet and social media risks

Social media and mobile technology have been accessed increasingly every day so
young people are able to make friends, broaden their social relationships easily
without meeting each other in a real life. Young people in Vietnam have rapidly
embraced the digital age and social media as an essential part of their lives. This
brings opportunities, but also risks. One risk posed by the internet and new social
media environments is related to grooming, trafficking and exploitation of
adolescent girls. There is a high level of willingness amongst Vietnamese children
to share personal information or photos on the internet, on social media that could
be used to locate them. Traffickers increasingly use the internet, gaming sites, and
particularly social media to recruit victims. They use methods, such as deception
and befriending of girls, to lure them into vulnerable situations. For example,
traffickers go online to find girls, invite them to shop in border provinces, then
traffic them across the Chinese border where they are subjected to forced marriage
and sexual exploitation. Reliable statistics on trafficked girls who have become
victims of forced marriage are not available, but there is growing evidence that
cross-border trafficking for forced marriage is a pressing issue. Critically, parents
do not provide enough supervision and knowledge of the risks of social media and
the internet, and do not teach their children how to use social media safely. There
is a need for digital literacy among young people and their parents, so they
understand the risks and develop some ways to act and behave safely.

5. Insufficient legal framework

While the law prohibits child marriage, the practice continues to exist. The
enforcement of prohibitions created conflicts between law enforcement officers –
who were often members of the community – and other community members. This
is the reason why the legal framework has not been applied consistently.
Moreover, other countries have found that a strict legal and punitive approach to
reduce child marriage is not effective when addressing certain types of marriage,
including “love marriages” and “marriages to resolve pregnancy”. The government
is unable to control the practice of under-age couples living together and marriage
may still take place either without formal civil registration or by paying the fines.

Other contributing factors, leading to prevalence of child marriages in Vietnam, are

identified as follows:

- Lack of supporting services and reproductive health education targeting teenager;

- Low level of literacy (language barrier among ethnic minorities);

- Urbanization, with parents occupied to earn a living, often leaving their children
behind.

- Early pregnancy happens frequently among girls in urban settings.

3.The Impact of Child Marriage on Victims and Society

In this day and age, child marriage is an issue of broad interest to the general
public. Researching and understanding about this problem show everybody the
advantages and disadvantages for victims and society.

First and foremost, child marriage brings financial benefits to the bride's family.
The early marriage status is common in ethnic minority areas which most families
have many children. If they were girls, those children tend to get married soon.
Before the wedding, the groom's family will bring gifts to the bride's home to ask
for brides. Those presents are of great value to the bride's family because they can
pay for the wedding and get out of poverty. For example, in Hmong families, if a
groom wants to marry his bride, his family will give a bride price for the bride's
family. That money is called the compensation cost for her family after nurturing
her. Sometimes, a bride price is very high. Therefore, that is also a reason for poor
families to marry girls early and earn that money for family life. The grooms'
family are also very beneficial after the wedding because they will have more
people to work and maintain the families' life. Brides will take care of almost all of
the members in grooms' families as well as help their husband in business and
work. Hence, child marriage to both of the family has several benefits.

On the other hand, child marriage has adverse effects on people. From a health
standpoint, the phenomenon of early marriage seriously has an impact on the
health of both mothers and their children. When girls bear children while they are
children themselves, they are really in danger. Although a child bride survives
childbirth, they are completely at risk for health complications later. Early
pregnancies make child brides vulnerable to obstetric fistula. They can be
supported to prevent complications, but their strength will weaken and it is very
difficult to give a birth again. More seriously, a child bride can die while giving a
birth. According to local health agencies in Vietnam, the generality of newborns
born to adolescent girls are often ricks and lack of nutrition which makes the
children grow slowly and face death soon. Statistics from the agency said that for
every 10 births to child brides, three forths were dead and the rest are mostly
malnourished. This is an extremely disappointing reality.

From an education standpoint, child marriage hinders the comprehensive

development of children. Both boys and girls who get married early will not have
the opportunity to approach the modern and advanced education. As a result, they
tend to shrink themselves and easy to feel embarrassed in front of the crowd. At
the same time, their mental and physical abilities are also limited. Children who are
not well-educated can lead to the risk of social evils such as HIV, robber, drug and
so on. The children also do not know how to take care of themselves and their
families. After this in the process of raising children, both mothers and fathers do
not have enough knowledge to look after their baby. It is tough for babies to grow
up without too many obstacles.

As far as the mental effect is concerned, child marriage disorders the boyhood of
brides and grooms. When they have a wife or a husband, they will not rest and
relax. Besides, they also will not take part in recreational and cultural activities
which appropriate to their age. But why? Because they have a family and their life
turn around this family. They have to work and care for all members. They are also
responsible for their children, for example, teaching them how to behave with the
elders, teaching them to study, playing with them and so on. While the children of
the same age are playing comfortably, girls after marriage will be at home to do all
the housework. Although their husband is about 15 or 16 years old, he began to
work to pay the daily expenses of the family. Their childhood is completely
different from other children. This is a life of adults and full of anxiety.

From a social standpoint, it is obvious that the early marriage status has critically
influenced the development of the whole society. The civilization where the
proportion with physical disabilities, mental retardation, and disabilities will be a
burden on human life. That will reduce the competitiveness of the economy.
Talking about child marriage, most couples are very young. They lost the
opportunity to learn, lack social knowledge, so they easily fall into poverty. Many
couples lead to divorce and directly impact on children's rights. It is tough to
improve and develop effectively. Additionally, there is a research which recorded a
number of suicides had occurred when a girl was forced to marry a stranger. A lot
of girls choose death to escape from the child marriage because they want to have a
normal life. In the case study of the International organizations, a participant in the
study commented that one of her siblings had killed herself to get rid of her wicked
mother-in-law. Specifically, the existence of child marriage increases trafficking.
Vietnamese girls as young as 13 are tricked into selling to China. Fraudsters give
families a lot of money to ask for brides. Then girls are taken across the border to
sell as young brides. Vietnamese brides in foreign countries will suffer a
tremendously difficult life. This affects their family and generates influence on the
psychology of the whole society.

In the light of these facts, one can reach a conclusion that child marriage in an
alarming problem of the countries. This phenomenon is more harmful than good.
Hence, the authorities need drastic measures to prevent and reduce the serious
problem as much as possible.

III.CASE STUDIES AND DISCUSSION

1.Vietnamese Law on Child Marriage

In Viet Nam, the law on marriage and family issues stipulates that the age of
marriage in women are sufficiently rounded to 18 and men are rounded to 20.
Furthermore, it supposes that child marriage is an illegal and harmful practice that
is a serious violation of human rights. Now, the government is enacting many laws
to ban and penalize child marriage, such as Family Law of 2014; Decree No.
110/2013/ ND-CP dated September 24, 2013, law on Marriage and Family, law on
Children and Penal Code of Viet Nam, …

The Vietnamese law stipulates that acts of child marriage will be sanctioned if they
fall into two situations:
- Organizing marriage and getting married for underage marriage people;

- Acts of deliberately maintaining illegal spousal relationships with underage

marriage persons despite the decision of the People's Court to force that
relationship.

In these two cases, depending on the level of the guiltiness, the act of child
marriage and the organization of child marriage will be punished from
administrative sanctions to criminal prosecution.

In cases of administrative handling, Article 47 of Decree No. 110/2013 / ND-CP

specifies as follows: “Warning or fining from 500,000 VND to 1,000,000 VND
will be imposed on an act of organizing child marriage or marrying the underage
marriage persons; the fine of between VND 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 will be
administrated to acts of intentionally maintaining illegal spousal relationship with
under-age marriage persons despite the decision of the People's Court to force the
termination of relationship”.

If the couples have been administratively sanctioned and continue to maintain their
spousal relationship, Article 148 of the Penal Code stipulates that: “Anyone who
has been administratively sanctioned and continues to commit one of the following
cases shall be warned, reformed non-custodial for up to two years or been a prison
from three months to two years:

a. Organizing marriage for underage marriage people;

b.Acts of deliberately maintaining illegal spousal relationships with underage

marriage persons despite the decision of the People's Court to force that
relationship”.
Child marriage is an illegal action and the most serious form of punishment is
criminal prosecution, which is clearly defined in Vietnamese law. Any action of
protesting or covering is also promoting the growth of child marriage.

Although there are many solutions as well as clearly defined laws, but the child
marriage is still occurring mainly in ethnic minority areas in mountainous and
western Nghe An due to complex underlying factors. The popular problem is that
the legal framework is neither sufficiently enforced nor effective for certain types
of child marriage. It was suggested that there are three reasons creating that issue.
Firstly, the enforcement of prohibitions caused conflicts between law enforcers and
other community members in most area. Moreover, some party members have not
yet complied with the law on marriage and family, especially some children's
cadres still practise child marriage. Although the marital relationship is not
recognized by law, localities are very indifferent in dealing with child marriage and
organizing child marriage. In addition, Law enforcement is not meaningful when
dealing with some kinds of child marriage, including “love marriages” and
“marriages to resolve pregnancy” because under-age of marriage couples still may
live together without formal civil registration or by paying the fines.

Therefore, the eradication of child marriage need the co-operation, the strong
impact of the whole political system.

2.Case studies/articles relating to Child Marriage in Viet Nam

There are many articles and researches related to the topic “child marriage”. In this
part, we will analyze some of them by giving a glance of main contents of the
article/study and more importantly, our own opinions to their conclusions and
programming recommendation for the government of mentioned nations.

1. Situational analysis on child, early and forced marriage in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia
The research was conducted by Ashley D. Jordana in order to help World Vision to
tackle child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) in four ASEAN countries namely
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar by filling the current shortage knowledge
about CEFM. In this report, each country was considered under different
perspectives: landscape analysis, national overview, social overview, the nation
human rights framework, review of international instruments, involvement of civil
societies in CEFM, child marriage (overview, causes, impacts). Now, we take a
deeper look at child marriage situation in Vietnam.

a.Overview of CEFM
CEFM remains widespread in Vietnam, increasingly so in rural areas, including the
mountainous provinces of the North, Northwest and Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Child marriage happens mostly among ethnic minorities with the rate 26,6%
among 53 groups of ethnic minorities.

A study conducted by the General Department of Population and Family Planning

in 2014, showed the proportion of child marriages against total marriages in 15
 selected cities.

b.Causes of early marriage

-Harmful practices

There is a custom of bride kidnapping in Hmong communities or the wrong

belief that boys and girls are fully developed enough to tie the knot at the
age under 18 of Ro Coi commune which make the effort to put an end to
child marriage become more difficult.

-Lack of birth registration and legal enforcement

Many young parents who have not had marriage licenses, have not
registered child registration for their children until they legally register the
marriage first in order to avoid fines.

-Impact of child marriage

+Adolescent pregnancy
 When girls have to give birth at early stage of their life in order to prove
their fertility for their family in law, they are to face the health complications
which are preventable. Statistics from the agency said: ‘for every 10 births to
a girl under the age of 18, 3.4 were dead and cases of malnutrition were
countless, occupying the large majority of cases’. In rural areas, the ‘under
five‘ mortality rate is at 22 per 1000 live births. Ethnic minority populations
have the highest rates at 43 deaths per1000 live births for girls under the age
of 18.
+Suicide

In a case study done by the ODI, girls who were forced to get marriage with
persons they did not choose, could consider killing themselves a way to
escape from this.
+Trafficking

Girls could be kidnapped and sold as brides for Chinese males who could
not get marriage females in their own country due to one child policy for
around 35 years and sex-selective abortion.

c.After that the author offered some methods role models for studied countries
which they should apply to address child marriage problem. According to him,
those measures below are applicable for 4 nations, but none of them proved to be
more successful than others in determining how policies and programs influence
puberty girls’ Development from childhood to adulthood.

1. Empowering girls with information, skills, and support network

 2. Educating and mobilizing parents and community members

3. Enhancing the accessibility and quality of formal schooling for girls

4. Offering economic support and incentives for girls and their families and;

5. Fostering an enabling legal and policy framework.

6. Strengthening child protection system

7. Empowering child participation and enhance life skills education,

reproductive health education and these should be integrated into the
education curriculum

8. Enabling environment for social work profession

For role models, he gave the readers some policies or programs have been applied
successfully in several specific countries, which include:

1. Make information more accessible: increased access to information

ranging from education, sexual and reproductive health… can make a great
contribution for development of a country.

2. birth/ marriage registration

3. campaigns for continuing education: education can decrease the

percentage of getting girls’ marriage under 18 years old by 35% due to 2
main reasons. Firstly, keeping girls at schools make people thinking that
they are still kids, thus they are not old enough to form a private family.
Secondly, schools can be regarded as a safe place which provides female
 students security from parental apprehensions about violence or sexual
harassment outside of the home.
4. Cash incentives: for example, in Japan, there is a scholarship program
which rewards girls from poor families background completing sixth grade.

In conclusion, overall, I strongly agree with the majority of this study, however
there are some points in the suggested methods that I found hard to agree from my
point of view. Firstly, for me, those methods seem to be too general that it uses one
pattern for all situations which is to ignore the diversity culture of each minor
ethics in Vietnam. Secondly, I do not think it is reasonable to apply to encourage
by money in Vietnam. Vietnam state budget has been already suffered from the
deficit by enormous foreign debts and other investment programs, if we use this
measure, it could place a serious burden on the budget. In addition, if a family
insists on forcing her daughter to build her own family due to their belief, the
question is that how much money will be enough for them to stop it.

2. Addressing the risk factors for early marriage in Vietnam

The article was done by Young lives (an international study of childhood poverty)
and on February 2016. The article gives information about child marriage in
Vietnam including 4 main parts: the effect of early marriage to its victims, reasons,
solutions and implication for policy.

- Why early marriage matters?

Early marriage has a negative impact on both immature women and her kids. For
girls, getting marriage under 18 put young women on risk of physically and
sexually abuse by their husbands. Moreover, young mothers and her kids may
struggle with higher mortality.

-Poverty, ethnic minority status and low empowerment are risk factors for early
marriage: Of the 462 young women in the Young Lives sample, 19% (85 girls)
were married by the age of 19 (Young Lives 2014). Of these, 30% had married at
age 16 or below; 39% at age 17; 26% at age 18, and a further four young women
(5%) had married at age 19. In other words, two-thirds (69%) were married before
the minimum legal age of marriage. Girls from poorest families or their parents did
not finish primary schools tend to be get marriage early. According to the study, in
some isolated village, early marriage is a result of a backward culture – abduction.

-School enrolment is a protective factor: the article also shows that attending
school is associated with a 35% lower chance of girls marrying at early age.
Besides, this effect is even stronger for young women from disadvantage
backgrounds at a 47% decline in the possibility of getting marriage early.

-Implications for policy: there are several solutions suggested by the author to
complement the law in fighting against this problem.
+ Helping ethnic minority girls and young women who leave school early

to find a suitable job.

+ Expanding and sustaining the policies that are already in place to

support poor and ethnic minority children to attend secondary school to
ensure poor and ethnic minority girls stay in school as long as possible

+ Extending reproductive health education and services to adolescents,

especially girls who are likely to marry early
+ Raising awareness against early marriage through strong propaganda
campaign
+ Strengthening the enforcement of the Law on Marriage and Family in
general, especially in the Northern Uplands and Central Highlands
+ Involving community elders and families in programs for early
marriage prevention

In conclusion, the article gives us useful knowledge related to child marriage and
convincing solutions which Vietnamese authorities could apply to solve this
problem. However, the last method I think it hard to implement in reality. This
method tends to change opinion of the elderly in families in order to prevent child
marriage because they are respective members and their words seem more
convincing. But there is a bitter truth that, the thoughts of the old are concrete and
they may find it impossible to alter it to a totally new thing; therefore, this measure
is not really practical. Instead, we should focus on role models who have been
successful to attain a better life by not marry early. Moreover, there is another
thing which I found on this article may offer a consideration. When the author cites
an example of a father in order to show that continuing education is an effective
way to prevent early marriage; the father told that he was willing to support his
daughter to pursue upper secondary school, but the daughter could be able to
understand Vietnamese official language (Kinh) because it was not her mother
tongue, she left school just after grade 4. So I believe we need to take more
attention to guarantee that teaching Kinh to the minority ethnic is effective.

3. Early marriage among Vietnam Hmong: how to unevenly changing gender

norms limit Hmong adolescent girls’ options in marriage and life
The study was conducted by Nicola Jones, Elizabeth Presler-Marshall and Tran
Thi Van Anh which contains 5 main contents:

Locating Hmong girls’ realities in their political and social contexts

- Vietnamese political context: Vietnam is a one-party state, led by the Vietnamese

Communist Party. In addition, there are many mass national institutions with 4
layers structured from central, provincial, district to commune level; however, this
kind of structure has been questioned about its effectiveness to serve priority needs
of its members.

- Hmong culture and history: Hmong community is one of the poorest minority
ethics in Vietnam due to their subsistence agriculture and total dependence on
weather. Besides, they have just slowly integrated to the modern world and
continued to maintain a lot of traditional culture and preferences on their daily life.
- Involvement with the government: program 135 has had positive influence on the
life of Hmong people by improving their standard of living

- Agency

- Hmong adolescent girls: our current knowledge about them is that there are lot of
backward practices still existing up to now such as

+ Son preference: girls always are underestimated than boys because of

the belief that they would be no longer a member of their natal families
physically and spiritually when they get marriage.
+ Limited resources reinforce tradition.
+ Education: tremendous progress, but still unequal

+ Silence and isolation: limiting agency, perpetuating the past Primary

research overview: Ha Giang, Meo Vac and Ta Lung.

The impact of Hmong marriage practices on adolescent girls and women

- Getting marriage: people in the study did not have any agreement in terms of the
average age when girls in Ta Lung marry, but they agree that girls nowadays got
marriage latter than they did in the past.

- Abduction marriage: it does exist and tend to be common; however young adults
do not think it is a negative thing because its sometimes base on their will.

- Bride price: it which is considered as a compensation of groom’s family for

brides’ ones because their daughter cannot continue work for their parents any
more, has tendency of rising dramatically over the last years.

- Marriage preparations

- Weddings: they don’t have any official wedding ceremony because

- Being married

- Fertility

Persistent norms, changing norms

Conclusions and recommendations

After mentioning to current situation of child marriage in Hmong communities,

authors offered a range of methods which I believe they are specialized for the
North, Northwest and Central Highlands of Vietnam and really practical in reality.
- Ensure continued and expanded support to attend school.

- Incentivise and monitor better enforcement of national laws on the age of

marriage.

- Invest in employment opportunities that could capitalise on Hmong uniqueness

and skills.

- Consider affirmative action measures.

- Encourage progressive role models for adolescents.

- Promote educational programming in schools and communities to eliminate

marriage by abduction.

- Address gender-based violence by supporting victims and encouraging new

masculinities.

IV.CONCLUSION