VNExpress-Nov 28
One early September morning in 2024, before leaving for work, Song Pao De and his wife made a quick phone call to their hometown 1,800 km away.
At the other end their daughter and two sons stuck their heads in front of the camera, and excitedly told their parents how they got to stay home due to a heavy storm that was causing floods and landslides. While the children were happy to have the day off due to Typhoon Yagi, De constantly worried about the bad state of the roads around his village every flood season. After Typhoon Yagi, seeing images of damaged hills and roads in his village, he grew even more anxious about his children’s well-being. De and his wife are among the first people to join the migration wave from the mountains of Son La to Binh Duong Province near Ho Chi Minh City, as they struggled with a life of constant hunger and debts back home. When the couple first left seven years ago, it had been the storm season then too. De had thought it would be for a short period and that they would return home soon. But they have visited home three times without being able to return for good.The year they left home saw a sharp rise in migration rates in the northern mountainous region. In the last three years that rate has ranked second out of the country’s six regions after only the Mekong Delta. But it has not always been the case: Between 2006 and 2008 this region had the lowest migration rate in the country. Then, according to a 2020 survey by the International CARE Organization in Vietnam, between 2017 and 2019 the number of people leaving their hometowns soared by 200% among many ethnic groups. Working far away from home was becoming a trend among the Mong, Van Kieu and Sedang people, with the two most common options for them being factory jobs (68.7%) and informal or seasonal work (18.3%). Their destinations and timeframes changed gradually. Initially many only left for a few months in a year when there was little farm work. But natural disasters, debts and the attraction of urban areas have made them leave for longer and longer. Read more at:
