By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

HANOI, Vietnam – The Vietnamese government will pass a new law strictly enforcing a 2-child per couple policy. Communist Officals in Vietname are worried about the growing-population in Vietnam.

Many Vietnamese families have a third child because of the longstanding preference for a male heir to carry on the family name.  Thus, many of the families that have more than two children have previous children who are daughters. According to government sources, for the first nine months of this year, childbirth has already increased by 10% from last year.

There is already an existing 2-child policy that was ratified in the 1960s; however, the policy was never strictly enforced.  That decree was “so general that people haven’t understood it and have sometimes taken advantage of it” said the deputy head General Office for Population and Family Planning, Duong Quoc Trong.  Trong added, “The demographic boom is damaging the country’s sustainable development.”

In the past, people were reprimanded by fines, pay-cuts, and expulsion from work for having a third child. The Vietnamese government has not yet disclosed what the new punishments will be for the 2-child policy. Certain minority ethnic groups will be exempt from the 2-child policy.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) estimates that Vietnam’s population growth is currently at 1.3% and will continue to grow for the next 30 years. However, Tran Thi Van of UNPF fears that the 2-policy will be problematic for Vietnam’s development in the future.

Van said the government should rethink the 2-child policy because “life expectancy is rising, the fertility rate is decreasing and in the next 20 years many people will be in the senior group” and “if there is not [a sufficient] labor force as the population is ageing, the country will face a lot of problems.”

For more information, please see:

APF – Vietnam to Tighten Two-Child Rule– 21 November 2008

BBC – Vietnam to Enforce Two-Child Rule– 20 November 2008

Channel News Asia – Vietnam to Tighten Two-Child Rule– 21 November 2008