For street children in Hanoi, Vietnam is falling far short of its obligations under Vietnamese and international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Between 2003 and 2006, Human Rights Watch received credible reports of serious abuses of street children in Hanoi. Primarily poor children from the countryside who go to Hanoi to find work, street children are routinely and arbitrarily rounded up by police in periodic sweeps and sent to two compulsory state “rehabilitation” centers on the outskirts of town, Dong Dau and Ba Vi social protection centers, where they may be detained for periods ranging from two weeks to as long as six months. This report focuses largely on Dong Dau, documenting the human rights abuses committed against children in this facility.
