Statement Following Country Visit to Vietnam

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, concluded his mission to Vietnam today by stressing that detention and compulsory treatment of injecting drug users and female sex workers in the so-called rehabilitation centres violate their right to health.

Detainees are denied the right to be free from non-consensual treatment as well as the right to informed consent in all medically related decisions”, he said. Calling the practices “ineffective and counterproductive”, the United Nations independent expert underscored that the centres perpetuate stigmatization and discrimination of those groups in the society, impede the Government’s HIV/AIDS efforts and have proven futile in reducing drug use and sex work, their stated objective.

I wholeheartedly support the closure of the rehabilitation centres”, said Mr Grover, “it is essential to ensure that the considerable resources now invested in these centres are used instead to expand alternative treatments for injecting drug users”. In that context, he commended the Government on initiating a number of pilot methadone and community-based programmes, which “are less costly and more effective in reducing drug use and facilitating the reintegration of injecting drug users back into the society.