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From Housework to Gold Mining: Child Labour in Rural Vietnam

Save the Children Fund carried out research on the situation of working children in rural areas of Vietnam. The research was largely based on information collected directly from children who participated in the data gathering process. They covered likes and dislikes for types of work, education, household, wages, accidents, abuse, poverty, migration and the effects of economic reform. The research showed the extent of child labour in Vietnam, the wide diversity of work done and the role children’s work plays in household production. It failed to explore children’s own coping mechanisms and survival strategies. “The research team still perceived children as helpless victims in need of protection rather than as social actors in their own right…. Children’s own strategies offer points of departure for developing more effective approaches to address the rights of working children”.

A hard copy of this report is available from the Participation Resource Centre.