Illustrative image (Photo: www.thanhniennews.com) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The phone rings all day inside the small room at 35Tran Phu street in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh district.
Le Thi Mai Quyen, an answering operator who has spent seven years fieldingcalls made from all over the country to the number 18001567 — the childprotection hotline — said she could not remember how many phone calls she hasreceived, how many people she has aided.
“We are very happy because we can help in many cases, but we are still very saddue to many cases in which children need help but they do not know the phonenumber to make a phone call,” Quyen told the Hanoi Moi (New Hanoi) newspaper.“Many cases let me think a lot,” she said.
Quyen said that she had recently received a phone from a 15 year-old girl in DongNai province. The girl told Quyen that she fell in love with an elder manthrough Facebook. After chatting online for a month, they had sex but the manstopped their relationship after that, causing her to panic and lose confidencein the future.
The girl phoned the centre that operates the hotline for advice on how to keepthe man, instead of denouncing him for abusing her. Quyen said she was verysurprised and saddened by the situation. But later the girl overcame thepsychological crisis thanks to the advices of the centre, she said.
“This is just one of the hundreds of children affected by the social networkthat we have supported. This shows the increased number of children who fall inlove, have sex early and live in virtual world," said Quyen.
Helping young people cope with the fallout from relationships or dangeroussituations that begin on Facebook is a new challenge for a years-old programme.Since 2004, Vietnam has used the free-of-charge hotline to advise and supportchildren, receiving over 2.5 million calls from across the country.
In 2004, the centre had only five employees with five phones running 14 hoursper day. The number of staff, experts and counselors has increased to over 20,and they work round-the-clock, Nguyen Cong Hieu, deputy director of the Centrefor Consultation and Communication Services of the Child Care and ProtectionDepartment under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA),told the Tuoi Tre (Young) newspaper.
Nguyen Thuan Hai, manager of the hotline, said that since the beginning of theyear, the centre has received more than 2,000 calls from people seeking tolearn more about the legal framework for protecting children or to report childsex abuse, exploitation or trafficking, or to discuss study stress, sadness ordepression in family when the parents divorced.
In case of emergency, the information is classified and reported immediately tothe local police and authorities for timely preventive measures, Hieu said.
For high-risk cases, operators will prepare documents and transfer them to thelocal relevant agencies for support, he said.
Children account for 70 percent of the callers. Sixty-five percent of them arefrom cities.
Calls related to physical abuse or hardship accounted over 53 percent of thetotal, mental health problems accounted for nearly 32 percent; reproductivehealth for 9.6 percent. Three percent of the calls were for other issues, Hieusaid.
Though the hotline has connected some children with lifesaving resources, manycases have not been detected and handled quickly due to a lack of humanresources, coordination between competent local agencies or families’ desirefor privacy.
But since the Child Law came into effect on June 1, hotline staff hoped the newregulations would comprehensively improve the enforcement of children’s rights,said Dang Hoa Nam, head of the Child Care and Protection Department.
The Child Law was built to provide a legal foundation for children’s rights inVietnam and to ensure the enforcement of children’s rights in accordance withthe spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children.
It has also created a firm legal foundation to improve the efficiency ofpreventing, controlling, detecting and handling child abuse.
The law provides regulations ensuring various children’s entitlements, such asthe right to privacy, the right to live with parents, the right to be adoptedand the right to be protected from abuse, including violence, sexualharassment, labour exploitation, abandonment and kidnapping.
Localities must assign staff to receive and handle information about children,Nam said.
And to make it easy to remember and respond in case of an emergency, a newhelpline, 111, has been set up and is expected to become operational inDecember.
The current 18001567 line will still be maintained, running parallel with 111,alongside other emergency numbers, such as 113, 114 and 115. The currenthotline staff will carry on their work at the new number.
"In the short term, we cannot give up the old number, but we will stoptheir transmission to focus on 111," Hieu said, adding that the functionof 111 is similar to the number 18001567.
There will be three consulting centres in the cities of Hanoi and Da Nang, andAn Giang province when the hotline comes into operation.
The Hanoi call centre connects and handles consultations for 28 provinces andcities in the north, while Da Nang handles calls from 16 provinces in thecentral and the Central Highlands, and An Giang serves 19 provinces and citiesin the southeast.
Hieu said not many people knew about the line 18001567 due to the long numberand lack of effort to publicise it. Putting the phone number on book covers,notebooks, pens or dairy products would also help make the hotline known, Hieusaid.-VNS/VNA
Le Thi Mai Quyen, an answering operator who has spent seven years fieldingcalls made from all over the country to the number 18001567 — the childprotection hotline — said she could not remember how many phone calls she hasreceived, how many people she has aided.
“We are very happy because we can help in many cases, but we are still very saddue to many cases in which children need help but they do not know the phonenumber to make a phone call,” Quyen told the Hanoi Moi (New Hanoi) newspaper.“Many cases let me think a lot,” she said.
Quyen said that she had recently received a phone from a 15 year-old girl in DongNai province. The girl told Quyen that she fell in love with an elder manthrough Facebook. After chatting online for a month, they had sex but the manstopped their relationship after that, causing her to panic and lose confidencein the future.
The girl phoned the centre that operates the hotline for advice on how to keepthe man, instead of denouncing him for abusing her. Quyen said she was verysurprised and saddened by the situation. But later the girl overcame thepsychological crisis thanks to the advices of the centre, she said.
“This is just one of the hundreds of children affected by the social networkthat we have supported. This shows the increased number of children who fall inlove, have sex early and live in virtual world," said Quyen.
Helping young people cope with the fallout from relationships or dangeroussituations that begin on Facebook is a new challenge for a years-old programme.Since 2004, Vietnam has used the free-of-charge hotline to advise and supportchildren, receiving over 2.5 million calls from across the country.
In 2004, the centre had only five employees with five phones running 14 hoursper day. The number of staff, experts and counselors has increased to over 20,and they work round-the-clock, Nguyen Cong Hieu, deputy director of the Centrefor Consultation and Communication Services of the Child Care and ProtectionDepartment under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA),told the Tuoi Tre (Young) newspaper.
Nguyen Thuan Hai, manager of the hotline, said that since the beginning of theyear, the centre has received more than 2,000 calls from people seeking tolearn more about the legal framework for protecting children or to report childsex abuse, exploitation or trafficking, or to discuss study stress, sadness ordepression in family when the parents divorced.
In case of emergency, the information is classified and reported immediately tothe local police and authorities for timely preventive measures, Hieu said.
For high-risk cases, operators will prepare documents and transfer them to thelocal relevant agencies for support, he said.
Children account for 70 percent of the callers. Sixty-five percent of them arefrom cities.
Calls related to physical abuse or hardship accounted over 53 percent of thetotal, mental health problems accounted for nearly 32 percent; reproductivehealth for 9.6 percent. Three percent of the calls were for other issues, Hieusaid.
Though the hotline has connected some children with lifesaving resources, manycases have not been detected and handled quickly due to a lack of humanresources, coordination between competent local agencies or families’ desirefor privacy.
But since the Child Law came into effect on June 1, hotline staff hoped the newregulations would comprehensively improve the enforcement of children’s rights,said Dang Hoa Nam, head of the Child Care and Protection Department.
The Child Law was built to provide a legal foundation for children’s rights inVietnam and to ensure the enforcement of children’s rights in accordance withthe spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children.
It has also created a firm legal foundation to improve the efficiency ofpreventing, controlling, detecting and handling child abuse.
The law provides regulations ensuring various children’s entitlements, such asthe right to privacy, the right to live with parents, the right to be adoptedand the right to be protected from abuse, including violence, sexualharassment, labour exploitation, abandonment and kidnapping.
Localities must assign staff to receive and handle information about children,Nam said.
And to make it easy to remember and respond in case of an emergency, a newhelpline, 111, has been set up and is expected to become operational inDecember.
The current 18001567 line will still be maintained, running parallel with 111,alongside other emergency numbers, such as 113, 114 and 115. The currenthotline staff will carry on their work at the new number.
"In the short term, we cannot give up the old number, but we will stoptheir transmission to focus on 111," Hieu said, adding that the functionof 111 is similar to the number 18001567.
There will be three consulting centres in the cities of Hanoi and Da Nang, andAn Giang province when the hotline comes into operation.
The Hanoi call centre connects and handles consultations for 28 provinces andcities in the north, while Da Nang handles calls from 16 provinces in thecentral and the Central Highlands, and An Giang serves 19 provinces and citiesin the southeast.
Hieu said not many people knew about the line 18001567 due to the long numberand lack of effort to publicise it. Putting the phone number on book covers,notebooks, pens or dairy products would also help make the hotline known, Hieusaid.-VNS/VNA
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