DSpace at VNU: At the intersection of gender, sexuality and politics: The disposition of rape cases among some ethnic minority groups of Northern Vietnam

© 2013 ISEAS ISSN 0217-9520 print / ISSN 1793-285B electronicResearch Note At the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Politics: The Disposition of Rape Cases among Some Ethnic Minority

© 2013 ISEAS ISSN 0217-9520 print / ISSN 1793-285B electronic

Research Note

At the Intersection of Gender,

Sexuality and Politics: The Disposition of Rape Cases among Some Ethnic Minority Groups

of Northern Vietnam

Nguyen Thu Huong

How is rape perceived and handled by members of the Dao and Hmong minority groups in Lao Cai, a northem provinoe of Vietnam? How are cultural notions relating to sexuality, female virginity and marriage interpreted, played out and contested among victims' family members, their wider kin networks, and the authorities responsible for upholding the law at the grass-roots level? In particular, how is the social notion of honour used as a patriarchal tool in influencing decisions about whether or not

to press charges against rapists or not? The results of fieldwork in Lao Cai during 2007 are reported.

Keywords: gender, sexuality, rape, ethnic minorities, family honour, prosecution,

Vietnam.

During my fieldwork on rape in Vietnam's Lao Cai province in 2007,local officials, mostly members of the majority Kinh' ethnic group,often told me: "Well, they will talk to you They have no qualms.I'm sure you can do it." "They" here refers to members of two ethnicminority groups, the Dao and the Hmong Already aware of populartales of "free love" among Hmong and Dao youths of both sexes,

I was, typically, told by an informant, "these [Dao] girls do not know

At the intersection of Gender, Sexuaiity and Poiitics 133

whether they still have it [their virginity] or not".^ The implication wasthat a young Dao female is entitled to unrestricted sexual freedom.Another informant said, "Young Dao people are just like Westerners

If they like each other they just do it as long as the girl doesn't getpregnant They do not care much about their future spouse's sexualhistory."^ The general opinion was that, in such an environment of

"sexual freedom", there was no room for rape There seemed to be

a causal association between the extent of sexual freedom amongHmong and Dao youths and the apparently rare cases of rape Theapparent absence of value traditionally placed on women's virginityand chastity among members of these two ethnic groups — a topicthat will be explored below — led to the belief among such informantsthat they did not view rape as a serious matter This all seemed a farcry from the experiences that I had had when conducting research onrape victims among Kinh people in Hanoi My peers and colleagueshad in fact expressed doubts as to the feasibility of such a project

in that latter context, because sex and especially rape are taboosubjects among the Confucian-oriented Kinh people (Nguyen ThuHuong 2012)

This research note explores the ways in which some members ofthe Hmong and Dao peoples in Lao Cai province, a northwesternprovince of Vietnam, perceive rape and manage its consequences.Cases considered demonstrate that local understandings of rapeare played out among victims, family and kin members and localcadres — the law enforcement authorities at the grass-roots level

In examining cultural notions pertaining to marriage, sexuality, andespecially female virginity among these ethnic groups, I point out thatnotions of family honour and economic considerations are prominent

in the management of the consequences of rape Their prominence ismanifested in the ways in which a victim's family decides on whether

or not to press charges against the rapist

Method and Sample

This note draws on an ethnographic study of a limited number ofrespondents using open-ended interviews, life histories, and participant

134 Nguyen Thu Huong

observation The study formed part of my doctoral research in

2007 on rape among both the KinhA^iêt majority and some ethnic minority groups in northem Vietnam The cultural and social stigma attached to rape among the Kinh meant that I approached prospective participants through a counselling office, which provided a contact address in the flyers distributed at the start of my research The flyers highlighted the purpose of the research, stressing the confldentiality

of personal information, the voluntary nature of participation and the free counselling services of a non-governmental organization whose main activities at the time focused on child sexual abuse.

In conducting the fleldwork among members of minority groups

in Lao Cai reported here, I relied on the assistance of a student who had helped in the distribution of flyers for my pilot study of rape victims in Hanoi in 2003 As luck would have it, in 2007 she was working in the Lao Cai provincial cultural bureau and had close contacts with members of different ethnic groups in the province.

I asked her to hand out flyers among local people when she travelled

to various districts in the course of her work Through her contacts

I was able to cover five cases of rape, four of which involved women and girls from three different Hmông and Dao villages and the flfth case involving an adolescent Kinh girl.

Involvement with participants from ethnic minorities posed new methodological problems First was the language barrier, since the two Hmông participants did not speak Vietnamese Since I myself do not speak Hmông, an interpreter was needed Second, these participants

lived in an area officially referred to as vùng sâu vùng xa (Vn.: deep

and remote area'*) near the Vietnam-China border Those who wished

to visit or carry out research in such areas generally required prior permission from local authorities I used a "top-down" approach to secure authorization to conduct ñeldwork in this sensitive area Having obtained an official letter of introduction from my home university

in Hanoi, I contacted the person in charge of Lao Cai province's Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism, who then made necessary arrangements with district-level officials These latter then instructed the commune-level cadres to facilitate my fieldwork.

At the intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Politics 135

A middle-aged cadre of the internal affairs section of the districtPeople's Committee was assigned to accompany me throughout thefieldwork, even though I had originally suggested that my formerstudent then working at the provincial cultural bureau would help

me out with the local scene The local authorities told me that thiscadre, a Kinh himself, was best qualified to help me He was bothknowledgeable about rape cases in the district and himself in factinvolved in delivering govemment support to "children in specific

circumstances" [Vn: trè em co hoàn cành âàc biet], including sexually

abused children.^ Moreover, I was told, it would not be wise fortwo women to travel among the ethnic minority groups in a frontier

area often seen as nhgy cam [Vn.: sensitive] and ñiU of phúc tap

[Vn.: complicated] problems, both social and political This manturned out to be an excellent "research assistant" as well as a reliablemotorbike taxi driver without whom I could not have reached myresearch destinations

At the Hmong village, I found an excellent interpreter in theperson of a retired chairwoman of the People's Conimittee of thecommune who was proficient in Vietnamese My fieldwork in thetwo Dao communes was less challenging because my intervieweesthere both spoke Vietnamese

I relied on the help of experts on ethnic minorities in Hanoi in myanalysis of fieldwork data on the rape cases involving members ofthe Hmong and Dao ethnic groups These included a senior scholar

at the Institute of Anthropology, a Dao himself, who went throughthe transcriptions of my Vietnamese-language interviews with theDao informants

Morals and Customary Law: Family Honour and Bride-wealth

among the Dao

In Vietnamese jurisprudence, rape is defined as an act committed bysomeone who, by means of violence or of the threat of violence or

by taking advantage of a victim's helplessness or by other means,forces a victim to have sexual intercourse against her will It carries

136 Nguyen Thu Huong

a punishment of imprisonment for two to seven years (Article 111,Chapter 12 of the 2009 Penal Code) Convicted offenders are barredfrom taking up any positions of responsibility or performing certainkinds of jobs (including some involving education and medicaltreatment) for a subsequent period of one to five years Terms of up

to twenty years or even life imprisonment may be imposed in severecases, as when victims suffer grievous bodily harm, perpetrators areknown HIV carriers, or victims die or commit suicide as a result

of rape.^

However, in real-life situations, fear of social disgrace resuhingfrom public knowledge of rape can be so great that a victim's familyoften shows a reluctance to contact the authorities or tries to treat theincident as a private matter What is at stake is the idea of "familyhonour", which is inextricably tied to a young woman's eligibilityand desirability as a marriage partner This idea obtains even in acontext in which virginity is not an important social factor, as in thecase of Dao people in Lao Cai

An example is the case of "Yen", a fourteen-year-old Dao girl,whose brother-in-law raped her and then killed himself later on thesame day.' Yen's father also suspected that her elder sister was abused

by another son-in-law later on As the father told me

We didn't report [the second rape to the authorities] This would only create trouble [That's what] I told my wife She also agreed we wouldn't

do it Better to protect her honour If this becomes known when she grows up she will have difficulty fmding a husband.^

Yen's father added, however, that if his son-in-law had not killedhimself, apparently out of shame, he would have taken him to thepolice The incident happened around noon at the perpetrator's house,after Yen had dropped by for a visit She suffered severe injury,ran home and was taken to the nearest hospital by her neighbours,since her parents were away at the time Yen was treated for seriousvaginal laceration with heavy bleeding The case became known toother villagers, but because of the suicide of the perpetrator therewas no prosecution

At the intersection of Gender, Sexuaiity and Poiitios 137When confronted with another rape in this family of manydaughters — involving Yen's unmarried elder sister and yet anotherbrother-in-law — soon after the first, the father was trapped betweenthe need to seek help for his daughter's physical injuries from therape on the one hand and the desire to hide another scandal on theother He decided not to report the crime, realizing that this secondrape was too much for the family to handle He would, that is, never

be able to find suitable husbands for these two daughters, and theshame and dishonour would stay with them as long as they lived.This case leads to the question of whether there is in fact no

emphasis placed on or "traditional value" attached to women's tiêt

khu-úpaí tiêt khôt [D.: virginity] among members of the Dao ethnic

group or in Dao society

Researchers on Dao society, those who have studied the twosub-groups of Dao Do and Dao Tuyén investigated in the presentresearch in Lao Cai (Pham Quang Hoan and Hung Dinh Qúy 1999)and elsewhere (Ly Hành Sorn 2003), have reported that whether agirl is a virgin has little bearing on her eligibility and desirability

as a prospective bride Put differently, mien chàng mien xiá

[D.: premarital sexual relations] are not seen as shameful amongmembers of these sub-groups, and thus the virginity factor does notplay an important role in decisions concerning marriage.' My fieldworknevertheless suggests that Dao girls generally do behave according to

certain local norms of morality [D.: hi-iu diêm nhân long] Ly Hành

Sorn, an expert on Dao culture and himself a member of this ethnic

group, has told me that local customs condemn mai ton gôi [D.:

out-of-wedlock pregnancy] and that if this occurs the boy and the girl

concerned will have to get married [D: ép nàn buaphây thô-ô] Dao

youth are thus not so casual in sexual relations as it might seem tosome outsiders They may indulge in "free love", but this behaviour

is often based on a conscious choice: girls are picked for their skill

in weaving and embroidery, while boys are chosen for their goodcharacter and physical attributes The next step is to "officialize" thesituation by arranging for the two families to meet to assess whetherthe boy's and girl's ages are compatible according to the locally used

138 Nguyen TTiu Huong

horoscope Age compatibility is a sine qua non for a Dao marriage

to proceed In its absence, the boy and the girl are free to look forother spouses The open attitude about female virginity allows theleeway for them to start that search anew without affecting familyand kin relations

Generally, Dao womanhood is subjected to certain restrictions

meant to protect the female's mai msiên [D.: reputation, honour] as

well as that of her family Traditionally a Dao girl is considered asymbol of her family's dignity and social status — assets that herparents often use to attract eligible sons of local dignitaries, with aneye on substantial bride-wealth For most Dao groups, the marriagecustom of bride-wealth has implications beyond simply the economic.The size of the bride-wealth is an indication of how "valuable" orwell bred the daughter is; it is her parents' emblem of honour forall to see On a more practical level, the timing of presenting andreceiving bride-wealth may constitute a means of meeting and adjusting

to labour needs Dao newlyweds generally live with the husband'sfamily But, if the girl's family needs labour for agricultural activities

or if the boy is poor, the girl's family would ask the boy to stay withthem temporarily and thus prolong the prénuptial period It is worthnoting that the boy and the girl are not regarded as truly married untilthe payment of the bride-wealth Only after the boy is accepted bythe girl's parents and allowed to live under their roof is the coupleofficially given the approval to sleep together (Ly Hành Son 2003).Therefore, it is not uncommon to see couples with grown-up childrenholding their wedding ceremonies Apparently, this kind of practice is

a burden to those who have many sons, and it is not uncommon tosee parents start to save for the bride-wealth requirement as early astheir sons' tenth birthdays Families with daughters need not worryabout this economic burden (Ninh Van Do et al 2003) For thisreason, even though the Dao have a kinship system similar to those

of the Hmong and the Kinh, there is no discrimination against femalechildren in Dao families (Do Ngoc Tân et al 2004)

In the two rape cases among the Dao that I studied, the socialnotions attached to women's roles seemed to make their experience of

At the intersection of Gender, Sexuaiity and Poiitics 139rape more problematic because of their failure to meet the expectations

of a proper girl Their sexual violation was different from premaritalsexual relations in the sense that the incidents were not kept in theprivate sphere The case of Yen was public knowledge because ofher need for hospital treatment for her grievous wounds and thesuicide of the perpetrator As in the second case, reported in thenext section, there was in Yen's case no pregnancy But both victimswere stigmatized as girls who "have failed" The two girls therefore

became mien xia tchâu quay mût tra-á [D.: devalued girls] Because

of the rapes, their worth as ñiture brides was much reduced Theywere no doubt reprimanded (by their parents) for getting themselvesinto such a situation What is at stake here is the link between thetraditional practice of bride-wealth and a relatively high value thatDao society places on female youth, which in turn has a bearing

on the experience of tchôm mien xia châu tiêt [D.: rape] and its

consequences

Moreover, in Dao society the parents of a rape victim are oftenbarred from communal ftinctions such as performing the rituals tolaunch a new crop season or representing the clan in negotiatingprénuptial arrangements This downgrading of their social status,together with the economic loss in the form of reduced bride-wealth,

is bound to affect parents' attitudes towards their own daughter.That attitude might come to include resentment and bitterness As

for the daughter, she might find herself subjected to nsa-ám tha-ám [D.: heavy stress] for derogating family mai msièn [D.: honour] and

depriving her parents of a sizable source of income in the form ofbride-wealth For instance, a woman who under normal circumstanceswould be worth some 120 silver coins (usually presented in the form

of jewellery like necklaces, silver pendants, celestial crowns) might

as the victim of rape be given away for free

To return to the case of the unreported rape of Yen's elder sister,one can assume that her parents' efforts to keep the incident withinthe family were meant to prevent the compromise of yet anotherdaughter's eligibility and opportunity for a good marriage, as therewas already a "devalued" daughter (in this case: Yen) in the family

140 Nguyen Thu Huong

As her mother put it, "We don't want to do [report] it to protectour daughter's name Anyway she's at the marriage age.'"^ Anotherreason was the physical and economical weakness of the girls' fatherand his fear of revenge on the part of his son-in-law, the secondrapist If I reported this to the police I'd have to assemble all thefamily members and tell them the whole thing Otherwise he mightuse violence Then I wouldn't be able to defend myself I didn'tdare to challenge him He threatened to beat me What could Ido? Look at my hands, they were crushed when a tree fell down

on me Now I can't even catch a chicken for my wife, let alonefight against him."

These circumstances obviously influenced the family's decisionnot to report the incident The mother was well aware of the factthat she might be blamed for the rape of her two daughters because,

in Dao society, it is expected that a respectable woman should knowhow to raise her daughters properly (Ly Hành Son 2007) Given the

potentially overt lún va doa-á [D.: blame] that might come after the

disclosure, the mother preferred to deal with the abuse informallyrather than to seek external intervention It was decided to keepsilent about the incident to protect not only the victim but also

other family members (mainly the other daughters) from the tu-ú va

doa-á [D.: social stigma] of rape The case affirms the role of Dao

mothers in making important family decisions It is in line with theviews of Mary Douglas (1991) and Ann Stoler (1989), according towhich women are made responsible for policing the moral-physicalboundaries of their families, in particular when it comes to women'sand girls' sexuality

Data from my fieldwork show that the notion of "family honour"and economic considerations (relating to bride-wealth) figureprominently in the social management of rape incidents among members

of the Dao group Families of rape victims often resort to customarylaw using marriage as a form of restitution In a way, the marriage

"resolves" everyone's problems: the victim gets a husband despitebeing "damaged goods", the victim's family honour is salvaged andwith due compensation, and the rapist gets the wife he might desire

At the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Politics 141 Negotiating Rape across Ethnic Lines: Financial Compensation

Another rape case studied in Lao Cai had an inter-ethnic character:

"Phi", an adolescent Dao girl was raped by a Kinh working in roadconstruction Her father recalled what happened after the incident

The next day we went to see the guy in charge of the construction team where he [the perpetrator] was working, but the guy told us to wait until evening Evening came but he still didn't want to talk to us.

My family decided to contact the commune People's Committee When the commune police came, he [the perpetrator] confessed everything The commune police chief asked us, "How do you want to resolve this case? If the case is referred to higher levels, it will be serious This guy has to go to prison." We thought, if we proceeded with the law, other people would know, and it would be difficult for my daughter to get a husband We said, "It's best to solve it amicably He has to pay [compensation] Then we will sign a statement sajóng we will not sue him further Not much, 10 million VND [US$650 at the time] If he doesn't agree, we will go to higher levels."'^

The complex and not always smooth relationships between uplandethnic minorities and the majority Kinh through history (Salemink

2011, p 28) may explain the arrogant attitude shown by the ofFenderand his boss in their reluctance to admit wrongdoing They appeared

to be both economically powerful, as they were involved in a building project, and culturally "superior", as they were members ofthe Kinh majority In this case, pohce involvement shifted the balance

road-of power between the rape victim and the assailant This is an exampleshowing that, when it comes to solving "intemal" problems, the policemay stand up for local residents, because they may have a sense ofbeing part of the local community (cf Koh 2006)

Since the perpetrator was an outsider and someone of a differentethnic background, recourse to customary law was ruled out Thevictim's family agreed to accept monetary compensation as analtemative to bringing the ofFender to justice As the rapist was aconstruction worker involved in building a road that ran through aDao village, a "deal" was quickly stmck between the victim's familyand the project leader, who acted on behalf of the rapist immediately