Students rallied to demand rights to go to school in front of Ky Loi Secondary School. (Photo by tinmungchonguoingheo.com)
Children and teenagers from displaced families in central Vietnam have staged a demonstration demanding authorities allow them to attend school.
On July 4, more than 150 students and their parents held a rally in front of Ky Loi Secondary School shouting, "Restore our right to education" and "We need schools." They also raised banners saying, "We want to go to school" and "Why have we been banned for two years?"
The protesters were aged 4-15 and came from Dong Yen Parish in Ky Anh District, Ha Tinh province.
"Police and security officers rushed in to control the demonstration," a local source said. "They videoed, threatened and beat some adults."
The source said the protest "aimed to put pressure on district officials."
Ky Loi Secondary School has six vacant classrooms due to lack of students, they added.
Local education officials asked schools not to admit students as a way of forcing families to move to a government resettlement area 30 kilometers away, according to the protesters.
In 2012, district authorities started to force out 1,000 households from Dong Yen parish in order to make way for an industrial zone but 160 households refused.
"We could not leave our home village that our ancestors built over 100 years ago," the source said.
Residents, most of whom catch fish for a living, refused compensation because the money on offer was insufficient to build new houses and support them while they sought new jobs.
"[We have] a responsibility to the community," Duong Tat Thang, General Director of Mitraco – the company involved – toldVietnam Business Forum.
"Mitraco is always striving to accommodate local people... [We] built a resettlement village… [so] the village community was not disrupted."
According to Thang, "local people are satisfied with the new community."
However, sources said the resettlement area lacked facilities with no religious, health, educational and employment services available. Some people who relocated had to return because they couldn't find work and ended up living in poverty.
But they found their old residences had already been destroyed by the government.