Many of the struggles that Canadian indigenous people endure are shared by other indigenous cultures throughout the world. Since I am living in Ho Chi Minh City, I felt compelled to explore the current conflicts facing Viet Nam’s indigenous people.

In comparing the two indigenous cultures, I found there to be many similarities. Viet Nam’s indigenous people are marginalized and live in greater poverty than the rest of the population – as is the case in Canada. Throughout history, they have been discriminated against and treated as ‘second class citizens.’ There is also a significant disparity in education.

UNICEF recently conducted research in Viet Nam and discovered that “school dropout among ethnic minority pupils has become something like a predestined fate.” Even though the government mandates that primary school be free to all citizens, corruption runs rampant and many public schools will not accept students without bribes, which most indigenous families cannot afford. Due to poverty, most indigenous children feel pressure to dropout and begin working at a young age.

One notable difference between the plights of these two cultures may be the degree to which the government supports their freedom of expression. In one of our discussions, Keith explained that the Canadian government does not allow indigenous communities full Jurisdiction over their education system. In Viet Nam, the socialist government has full control over mass media, how information is portrayed and how its population is educated on the matter. This lack of freedom of expression certainly prohibits Vietnamese indigenous people from sharing their values, their feelings of bitterness or their stories of unfair treatment.

http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.32/vietnam_indigenous_ngo_report.pdf