US embassy cable - 03HANOI2047

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 002047 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BEIJING FOR A/S DEWEY 
 
STATE FOR PRM, EAP/BCLTV 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: SOCI, PGOV, VM 
SUBJECT:  FAMILY PLANNING POLICY AND PRACTICE IN VIETNAM 
 
1.  (U)  Summary.  A new ordinance on family planning 
enshrines individual choice of family size and timing, while 
"encouraging" small families and seeking "rational" 
population structure and distribution.  There is a clear 
concern about growing over-population in urban areas and a 
need to keep people in the countryside as much as possible. 
GVN officials admit uneven implementation of earlier 
decrees, including in some cases fines and other punishments 
not entirely prescribed by law.  The new ordinance may be in 
part to respond to potential international criticism.  Fines 
for violations of family planning policies are reportedly 
"abolished" but other Party and State statutes apparently 
retain this option privately.  End Summary. 
 
New legislation 
--------------- 
 
2.  (U)  The Standing Committee of the National Assembly on 
January 9 passed a new ordinance on population and family 
planning, which was promulgated by President Tran Duc Luong 
as Order No. 01/2003/L-CTN on January 22 and went into legal 
effect on May 1.  It builds on the resolution on population 
and family planning policy adopted at the Fourth Plenum of 
the 8th Communist Party of Vietnam's Central Committee in 
1993.  It also marks a more formal version of Prime 
Ministerial Decision No. 270-TTg of June 3, 1993, which had 
originally approved the "Strategy on Population and Family 
Planning to the year 2000," the "Strategy on Population and 
Family Planning to the year 2010," and related other 
instructions based on the party doctrine. 
 
3.  (U) Madame Le Thi Thu, Minister-Chairwoman of the 
National Committee on Population, Families and Children, 
told the media in February 2003 that the Ordinance was 
designed to ensure that actual practices by Ministries and 
local agencies were fully consistent with state policy and 
law.  Experience had demonstrated, she admitted, that 
implementation and awareness of policies and legal 
regulations on population and family planning differed from 
locality to locality.  She stressed that earlier State 
policies on population focused primarily on adjusting only 
population size via family planning, while the new ordinance 
also mandates State efforts to regulate population 
structure, quality, and physical distribution.  The passage 
of this ordinance should clarify policy and provide 
comprehensive, definitive guidance on population activities, 
she claimed. 
 
Individual choice, but. . . 
--------------------------- 
 
4.  (U)  The Ordinance explicitly guarantees that each 
couple or individual shall have the right to decide when to 
have a baby, the number of babies, the time between each 
child, and the preferred method of contraception.  At the 
same time, it emphasizes that all citizens have the 
"obligation" to practice family planning and to "build 
families with few children."  The ordinance prohibits any 
activities either to obstruct or to force family planning, 
to select the gender of unborn babies, to import or sell 
fake or faulty contraceptive devices, or to engage in human 
cloning.  It calls upon the State to take adequate measures 
to ensure gender equilibrium "according to natural 
reproduction law," as well as to encourage pre-wedding 
health checks and genetic tests for people "in danger of 
genetic defects or being affected with toxic chemicals." 
The State further is required to invest in "reproduction- 
supporting technology" to assist "sterile and sterilized 
people," and undertake measures to eliminate "all forms of 
gender discrimination" and to encourage the "preservation of 
multi-generational families." 
 
5. (U)  As part of its campaign to achieve "rational" 
population distribution, the Ordinance instructs State 
agencies to give priority investment to low population 
density areas, as well as generally to rural areas in order 
"to reduce the motive force for migration to urban centers." 
The State is also specifically called upon to adopt some 
policies (not described) to "restrict the concentration of 
"population in a few big cities."  The State will comment 
and/or reward all agencies, organizations, and individuals 
making "achievements" in population work, while reserving 
the right to discipline, administratively sanction (to the 
extent of possible penal liability), or seek compensation 
from those who violate the provisions or this Ordinance. 
 
6.  (U)  While the Ordinance prescribes the right of 
individual to decide the number of babies and the time 
between each child, a draft Government Decree to implement 
the Ordinance still states that "each couple is suggested to 
have only one or two children," and that "each couple is 
encouraged to make duration between births of children from 
three to five years." 
 
. . . more than two is dangerous for your health 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
7.  (U)  According to Ha Dinh Bon, a senior expert from the 
National Committee on Population, Families and Children, a 
1993 law on the protection of citizens' health -- which does 
prescribe that "each couple should have only one to two 
children" -- technically still takes precedence over the new 
Ordinance.  He opined that seemingly more flexible 
provisions of the Ordinance (i.e., the right of each couple 
to decide the number of babies and the time between each 
child) likely reflect the GVN's acknowledgement of 
international human rights concerns.  He also admitted that 
various local administrations and agencies had sometimes 
issued regulations not in conformity with State and Party 
policies and guidelines, including in many cases fines that 
are not prescribed by law.  He added that some "mistakes and 
wrongdoings are unavoidable at times."  The draft 
implementing Decree notably stresses that civil servants and 
Party members need strictly to abide by the Law on Civil 
Servants, as well as Party statutes, which require them to 
follow guidelines and instructions issued by individual 
agencies and Party organizations on issues including family 
planning.  According to family planning officials, this 
means that -- regardless of the provisions of the new 
Ordinance -- individual party cells, agencies, ministries, 
and localities nonetheless may in practice retain the right 
to impose limits on family size for their members/employees. 
 
8.  (U)  Separately, Deputy Director General Le Hoai Trung 
of the Foreign Ministry's International Organizations 
Department stressed to Pol/C on August 5 that the 2003 
ordinance was part of a new campaign by the GVN to lessen 
State interference in family life and to leave family 
planning decisions to individual families.  He claimed that 
henceforth the GVN's focus would be more on reproductive 
health, while continuing only to "encourage" responsible 
family planning practices.  He stressed that fines and 
punishment had been "abolished," tacitly admitting that such 
practices had long existed in various family planning 
efforts. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
9.  (U)  Billboards and other propaganda continue to 
highlight the importance of small families, and certainly in 
urban areas the lesson has largely been learned.  Anecdotal 
evidence indicates that average family size in rural areas, 
as well as in mountainous ethnic minority areas is also 
decreasing, although not as sharply as in more expensive 
urban settings.  Embassy in subsequent reporting from Hanoi 
and provincial travels will follow the success of 
implementation of the ordinance and relevant decrees, 
particularly to see whether fines continue to be assessed in 
violation of state policy and whether civil servants in 
particular face administrative punishment, or face loss of 
promotions and other benefits, when they exceed these 
"healthy" prescriptive norms. 
PORTER