MONG SON, Vietnam (UCAN) -- Amid rising prices of food and other basic needs, Catholic women in a northern parish are working hard in quarries to support their children.

Therese Hoang Thi Thu with her children.

Five state-run and private companies are mining white rock from hills around a large lake supplying water to Thac Ba Hydroelectric Plant. Those quarries, in Yen Bai province's Mong Son village, 220 kilometers north of Ha Noi, employ women from Mong Son and other local villages to load rocks for shipment.

About 2,500 of Mong Son's 3,000 residents are Catholics. They form half the membership of the parish based in the village, which covers an area that is home to 150,000 people.

One day in June, in 38-degree-Celsius heat under a scorching sun, hundreds of women workers were handing heavy white rocks down a line to one another for loading onto trucks and boats.

"We know that carrying rocks is hard physical labor that can damage our health, but we must do it to support our families, because there are no other jobs here," Maria Dinh Thi Lien told UCA News as she wiped the sweat from her face.

The 41-year-old woman, whose husband died last year, said she and her five children cannot live off their 720-square-meter plot of land, which produces 400 kilograms of rice a year. She explained that she cannot provide enough food for her children and cover their school fees without the money she earns carrying rocks. They live in a small thatched hut.

Lien, who has labored at the quarry since 2000, said the women start work at 5 a.m. in the summer, before the heat gets excessive, and each earns 40,000 dong (US$2.40) a day for loading 10 cubic meters of rocks.

Therese Hoang Thi Thu, 46, another quarry worker, told UCA News the heavy burden of supporting her six children fell on her after her husband died of a stroke last year. Like Lien, she says she must work hard or her children will drop out of school or not have enough food.

Thu said she carries rocks weighing up to 40 kilograms every day to earn her 40,000 dong. "I pray to God for my good health to support my children," she added.

Maria Nguyen Thi Soi, a mother of 10, told UCA News local women work hard carrying rocks or fishing on the lake in the evening. She said three of her children left secondary school and also work in quarries to help the family.

After prices of food and other basic goods doubled and even tripled during the first six months of the year, their daily meals consist only of rice, vegetables and salt, which Soi said does not ensure good health.

Marie Nguyen Thi Thuong, 16, a ninth-grader, told UCA News she had to drop out of school and work in the quarries, for 24,000 dong a day, to help her parents, who have eight children.

One woman, Marie Nguyen Thi Hong, said she is not able to carry heavy rocks, so she and her husband fish to support their six children.

Catholic women loading rocks onto boats at a quarry Mong Son village.

According to Father Michael Nguyen Tien Quang, Mong Son parish priest, local families typically have 5-10 children but only a few hundred square meters of rice field each. He estimates 500 local women work in the quarries.

The priest, 35, told UCA News he has little he can use to help the families but encourages them to keep their children in school since an education can help them eventually escape from poverty.

An owner of a local private company mining the white rock told UCA News that due to a price hike, he pays 4,000 dong for each cubic meter of rocks loaded onto a boat or truck, up from 3,000 dong in the past. He pays 17,000 dong for each cubic meter of rocks men extract for the women to load.

According to the businessman, a cubic meter of rocks sells for 1 million dong elsewhere. The white rock is used by domestic companies to produce cement and calcium-added milk products, and also exported to foreign countries.

He admitted the five companies make high profits from quarrying, while local people suffer from dust and noise.

END