25/08/2022
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Please take the time to read this very important information.
As you walk the streets in Sapa you are likely to be approached by children selling souvenirs or performing “traditional” dances for tips. You may even have young teens asking to take you on a trek to their village.
As you cruise through the mountains of Ha Giang, you may also see children posing for photo opportunities at some of the most scenic spots. Persistent, entrepreneurial kids are a common sight in northern Vietnam. To some travellers, the spectacle provides wonderful opportunities for photos and the thought of “helping” makes others feel good. But what is the reality behind the child sellers? Is their presence all it seems and are their better options for them?
This post is a request to not to photograph children in exchange for money, not to hand out gifts or sweets to children and a strong recommendation to refuse products or trekking tours offered by minors. On the flip side this is also a strong call to buy treks, experienced and handmade traditional products from adults. However, buy out of genuine interest and never out of guilt. When booking a tour in Sapa, always ask for a hill tribe guide, with both Dao and Hmong people offering rich local knowledge and a genuine human experience.
Local women in Sapa sometimes earn a living by guiding. This is usually a suplimentary income and typically goes alongside their duty as mothers and farmers. With just a single rice crop, few people in the highlands grow enough rice to sell and indeed most families have a deficit of rice and must buy more. For all extras such home building materials, clothing and food, they therefore need an income. Perhaps after their traditional duties, they may only trek a few days a month. Many children in the region are still undernourished. Many lack the necessary clothing and provisions to make the cold winters safe. Ethical and well planned tourism is therefore hugely beneficial to travellers and locals alike. Your presence as travellers is encouraged and people enjoy welcoming visitors to learn about their culture.
Buying from, trekking with or giving to street children not only keeps them on the streets trapped in a cycle of poverty, but may also deny them their basic international rights and keeps them at risk for several reasons:
Denial of education and full potential…
A child’s education is an investment in their future potential and paves the way for them to access successful employment as adults. All children in Sapa have free access to school up to grade 9 (15 years old). Without this basic right and opportunity to learn, there is little hope of Sapa’s street children ever earning a decent salary, especially if they grow up enumerate and illiterate. Selling earns a meagre wage now. School opens up opportunities in the future. These opportunities need to be nurtured, so look for any organisations that legitimately employ and support ethnic minority employees.
Let’s use the the Ha Giang Loop as an example. If you’re riding as part of a group organised by a Vietnamese agency, with a Vietnamese guide and staying in Vietnamese owned accommodation, how do the local hill tribes benefit? They now have the inconvenience of hundreds of travellers passing through their villages each week. They have cameras pointed in their faces desperate to capture that special moment, yet how do these villages themselves actually benefit? Many see charging for images as the only way of earning. Surely a better model would be to support guides who were actually born in these communities?
While many of the street selling children in Sapa do attend school during the academic week, some attend exhausted after long hours and late nights selling on the streets. Likewise money often disincentivises school attendance with many street sellers often having a poor attendance record when compared with other children in the villages.
Child labour exploitation…
Do you think the child selling bracelets actually sees much of the money they make? Sometimes they may spend a little on a soft drink or sweets if they are hungry. A significant proportion of the money collected by street vending children directly benefits an adult as well as having to cover the costs of the products they are pedalling. For all of the child’s illegal long hours and efforts, what real benefit does it bring them? While they are selling, think what father father might be doing. In circumstances like this, it is often easy to blame the parents, but please read on for the background behind this issue.
As for the 13 to 16 year olds offering cheap tours. They usually live in town, away from home and far from the influence of family and their own community. With little by way of positive guidance, these girls are highly vulnerable. Trekking with them may seem like the right thing to do, but by doing so, you are certainly increasing their exposure to potential danger. You may not be a bad person, but the next group that trek with a trusting child might be. There are international laws to protect children and trekking with children is illegal for a reason. There is no shortage of adult guides proficient enough in English and with a greater maturity that will happily guide you while in Sapa.
Sexual exploitation and trafficking…
Children on the streets, especially those at night and without adult supervision are in danger from sexual predators and human traffickers, many of whom are drawn to Sapa specifically because children are so readily accessible on the streets. Female children and young teenagers are also specifically targeted for trafficking to China. This isn’t a fantasy. If your actions encourage children to be on the streets, you are certainly part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Buying a souvenir or booking a trek with a child may seem harmless enough at that moment, but our team urge you to stop and think twice. Realise that what you are doing actually keeps this child on the streets and therefore exposed to more danger in the long term.
Buying from an adult is a totally different issue altogether and something we have no issue in encouraging. Many Hmong and Dao people rely on an income to boost their ability to buy essentials when their home grown food is insufficient. Their textiles are often stunning, hand made pieces that are rich in symbology and utilise traditional dyes and processes. Tours with experienced adult guides are frequently described as life changing and the benefits of trekking with licensed local guides is a sustainable way of enjoying your travels and helping people.
You may see signposts around Sapa discouraging you from trekking with or buying items from Hmong and Dao women. It is our opinion that meaningful employment for parents is the only solution street selling children.
For historical reasons, most Hmong and Dao adults over the age of 30 are illiterate. This marginalises them from most mainstream formal employment opportunities within a town where almost all businesses are Vietnamese owned. While jobs are plentiful, few are suited to those who aren’t proficient at reading and writing. As such, Hmong and Dao adults find work difficult to come by. A substantial group of Hmong men wait by the market each day, hopeful of being picked up as daily labourers doing manual work like lugging bricks or building work for example. This work is neither contracted or reliable, but shows how keen some people are to work when it become available.
Most Hmong boys and girls in their teens and early 20’s are now literate and those in this age bracket are able to find work in some of the lower paid positions around town. With time, we hope they can develop and learn. In a perfect world, they will grow as entrepreneurs and business owners in their own right. There are many social barriers in place that prevent this from happening at the present time.
For us, the only solution to ending children selling on the streets is the provision of meaningful and appropriately paid jobs for parents, regardless of their socio-economic position or literacy levels. We all have choices. When visiting Sapa, Ha Giang or other locations with child sellers, we urge you to think about the big picture and travel responsibly. Focus your travel on enjoyable experiences for yourselves but put local employment firmly at the forefront of your thoughts.
Photo Credit: Bách Pham
