Child marriages are common in Vietnam’s Pako ethnic community. Boys marry at 15 and girls at 13.
They marry young. They become young parents. Mothers can be very young indeed.
Money’s tight. Extended family move over to provide space. Couples commonly live apart with husbands and fathers chasing a living elsewhere in the country.
Even with family support, young couples don’t always cope. Domestic violence is an issue for some.
Catholic support
People give as and where they can. Catholics seem to step up often.
In some districts, Catholic nuns help out with food and milk for the children.
In others, parishes give undernourished children healthcare services and Caritas workers help with housing repairs.
A 17-year-old mother, whose husband’s in jail because of domestic violence, says she and her child receive rice and 500,000 dong (US$21) from Catholic nuns who support the child. She also grows bananas and raises goats for a living.
Sister Nguyen Thi Ngoc Lan, a Daughter of Mary of the Immaculate Conception, says nuns regularly visit and offer medical check-ups and medicines to ethnic villagers in remote areas.
There’s also a Church-run home for pregnant women left by their boyfriends and families. Founded in 2014, it provides free accommodation, food, and medical and other care to 12 women.
Customs and cultures
Most often the Pako – an ethnic minority community – live in remote areas, with little outside contact or access to modern life.
It’s a community where child marriages are an age-old custom.
“We have a small population so we try to have more children to maintain our identity and to ensure a future labour force,” one Pako parent explains.
Local government associations have asked “us to immediately abandon the child marriage custom, but it fell on deaf ears,” he says.
The stats
The south-central province of Thua Thien Hue and its neighbouring Quang Tri province are home to over 50,000 Pako ethnic people.
Thua Thien Hue province recorded 350 child marriages among local ethnic groups between 2017 and 2021. (This is despite the country’s law saying men have to be over 20 and women over 18 to get married.)
By tradition, boys marry at the age of 15 and girls at 13. It is considered “difficult” for a girl to find a match if she is over 15.
The problems
The problems with teen marriages are manifold.
Youngsters are not given proper training to look after children and maintain a decent family life. Because of this, couples often suffer from domestic violence. Some marriages end in divorce.
Many young women fail to look after their pregnancies, suffer miscarriages and give premature birth, Sister Lan says.
Some young mothers leave their babies at garbage dumps or in front of convents for the nuns to raise them.
Ethnic Catholics avoid child marriage
Local priest Paul Duong Quoc Minh says most local ethnic Catholics avoid child marriage. They are educated in Church regulations and are aware of the grave problems caused by the custom, he says.
They also refuse to attend wedding parties of teenage couples as a way of protest against the custom, the priest says.
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