Vietnam urgently needs a stronger protection system for women and children, and a zero-tolerance attitude toward violence, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative said in a statement regarding the fatal beating of an eight-year-old girl in Ho Chi Minh City at the hands of her father’s fiancée.

“UNICEF today expressed its deep sadness and concern over the recent violent death of a young girl at the hands of someone who she should have been able to trust, to protect her [sic],” UNICEF representative to Vietnam Rana Flowers said in the statement released on Wednesday.

Flowers was referring to the death of N.T.V.A., an eight-year-old girl who was beaten by her father’s fiancée on December 22 and died from her injuries the following day.

“The rising accounts of abuse of children, even greater during COVID-19 lockdowns, signal an urgent need for a strengthened approach,” she said.

In response to the heartbreaking death, Flowers emphasized that “a strengthened protection system for women and children is urgently needed in Vietnam.”

Such a system, the statement read, should not be comprised of volunteers or untrained welfare officers, but instead should consist of qualified professional social workers who can identify, intervene, and respond to the needs of children and women in order to ensure their safety.

This system should also include training for law enforcement and legal officials, such as judges, and should be centered on a zero-tolerance attitude toward violence.

‘Zero-tolerance’ means neighbors or anyone else who witnesses or hears violence immediately notifies authorities, rather than brushes it off, waits for it to progress, or ignores it completely, according to the UNICEF statement

It also means that police should be held accountable for taking action against such violence and that health workers and teachers who recognize signs of violence immediately inform authorities.

In addition, community-based solutions, including relocating perpetrators, must be taken so that children and women can continue to live safely at home, UNICEF said.

Nguyen Vo Quynh Trang, the 26-year-old woman responsible for A.’s death, was arrested on December 23, one day after brutally beating the child in an apartment building in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, where she had lived with the child and her father, NK.T.T., 36, since mid-2020.

Police detained Trang following a hospital report on the unusual death of the little girl, who had been taken to the hospital in a coma, accompanied by a cardiac arrest and apnea.

Doctors who examined A.’s body found it covered in wounds and police on the scene were able to determine that Trang had hit A. to death.

Police also questioned T.’s neighbors, who said they had heard A.’s screams while she was being beaten on the afternoon of December 22.

They added it was not the first time.

Functional forces collected evidence from T.’s apartment, amongst which was a long list of daily chores the father and his fiancée had assigned to the girl.  

Trang will be temporarily detained for two months during the ongoing investigation into her initial charge of “torturing others,” as prescribed by the Vietnamese Penal Code, police said.

Public opinion commented that such a charge is much lighter than the crime the woman had committed. 

Flowers called on the public to do more to protect those made vulnerable and to raise the awareness among women and children that violence is not acceptable in any form.

“Reaching out for help to make it stop is essential,” the UNICEF representative said.

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