Photos | Vietnam’s state-run drug rehab: Work therapy or forced labour?
Updated On Dec 12, 2017 11:33 AM IST
During years of compulsory rehab in Vietnam, addicts spend days sewing shoes or tending vegetable gardens as part 'work therapy'. But critics and inmates say this work is tantamount to forced labour and rarely helps users stem addiction.
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Updated on Dec 12, 2017 11:33 AM IST
An inmate looks out from behind bars during an initial period of cold turkey withdrawal, inside a drug rehabilitation centre in Hai Phong, Vietnam. During years of compulsory rehab in Vietnam, addicts spend days in a range of activities as part of what authorities call ‘work therapy’. But critics say the work of tens of thousands addicts is tantamount to forced labour that rarely helps users extinguish their addiction. (AFP)
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Updated on Dec 12, 2017 11:33 AM IST
Inmates are curled up on the floor of a locked room, subjected to cold turkey withdrawal. This centre houses some 500 addicts --mostly admitted by relatives-- who after an initial period behind padlocked doors are moved to dorm rooms. Once clean, they are put to work sewing shoes or tending vegetable gardens and can receive vocational training as electricians or carpenters. (AFP)
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Roadside signage warns on the dangers of drug addiction at a village in the outskirts of Hanoi. Between 2014 and 2016 more than 65,000 addicts cycled through theses centres, usually a mix of compulsory patients sent by police and those admitted by exasperated relatives. Up to 80 percent of addicts from the centres relapse, according to official figures. (AFP)
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Inmates sew shoes at a drug rehabilitation centre. Most inmates stay for one or two years, or up to four if they are deemed unfit for release, and are subject to a range of daily labour -- from farming cashews to making sportswear for Western clothing brands, which they can sometimes earn a meagre salary from. (AFP)
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Rights groups accuse officials at the centres of skimming from those salaries or pocketing boarding fees paid by some users’ families, and say addicts are detained against their will. “These are a failure in terms of drug treatment, but they’re incredibly successful in terms of generating money for government functionaries who run the centres,” said Richard Pearshouse, an associate director at Human Rights Watch. (AFP)
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Trung, a former inmate at a centre says he faced routine beatings from guards and hours of labour for nominal pay. “Life there, from eating, to walking, to sleeping, to working -- there was no human rights at all”. But many think these schemes are a good thing. “When you have a drug addict in your house, you live in hell...drug addicts do nothing good for the family or the community, they should be locked away,” said Ms Luong, mother of two heroin-addicts. (AFP)
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Staff hands a dose of methadone to a recovering drug addict at a treatment clinic in Bac Giang. The government has acknowledged the need to reform the facilities and has softened drug policies, piloting community-based treatment and methadone clinics. Trung also insists his daily dose of methadone is the only effective treatment he’s had. (AFP)
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Conditions inside Vietnam’s 132 centres vary widely, though several have experienced mass breakouts due to overcrowding. “Vietnamese laws and regulations are being perfected, especially when it comes to drug rehabilitation and treatment, to consider drug addicts patients,” said Le Thanh Tung, director of the Department of Social Evils Prevention in Hai Phong city. (AFP)
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Updated on Dec 12, 2017 11:33 AM IST