Parents around the world will often give up a child for adoption because they do not have the means to care for him or her. When children in Vietnam are given up, their parents are protecting the little one from a horrific fate: prostitution.
During Friday's Asia at Noon lecture, Michael Frisch, a professor in the Department of American Studies, spoke about the extreme poverty in Vietnam and aimed to give the audience an idea of what life is like for Vietnamese families and youth.
Young girls are commonly smuggled from Vietnam, bound by a contract, to prostitute in areas such as China and Cambodia, according to statistics on catalystfoundation.org. About 15,000 to 20,000 Vietnamese girls and women become prostitutes in neighboring Cambodia. Many of them are deceptively trafficked as children with false job offers and tourist trips.
During the lecture, Frisch focused on his trip to Vietnam with the Catalyst Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to develop impoverished communities, including those in Vietnam.
Frisch traveled to Vietnam to learn about the circumstances that poor families live in.
Frisch's own adopted daughter, Naomi, is from Vietnam. She was given up by her family in the hopes that she would find a better life elsewhere.
In the lecture, he described the process of her coming to terms with the fact that her birth parents gave her up for adoption. In an effort to show her what it is like in Vietnam, Frisch brought Naomi back to the country along with his wife and other child.
"[The Foundation has] really focused on long-term projection, as opposed to short term," said Melayne Karnitz, a graduate student of the Department of History, who was at the lecture.
Frisch arrived in Vietnam with 84 volunteers split up into three groups-the Medical Team, the Home Team and the Distribution Team.
Frisch's wife worked as a part of the Medical Team, which consisted of doctors, nurses and dentists. Frisch was a part of the Home Team that constructed new edifices. Within the two weeks, the volunteers had built seven new houses.
Frisch's two children were involved in the Distribution Team that handed out food and over 200 bicycles to the Vietnamese children.
The bicycles will help get the children from their neighborhoods to a school the Foundation had previously built.
Frisch helped build a house for the family of a young girl who had been sexually assaulted by her drunken neighbor. After this horrifying experience, he said, the girl was considered "ruined" by those around her.
"[Sexual assaults] are completely below the radar of Vietnamese society," Frisch said.
While the group was there, they acknowledged the issue of abuse and child trafficking by helping the young girls in the area.
Students who attended the lecture came away with a better understanding of the Vietnamese culture and their struggles.
"I was surprised at the degree that the poor people [that] had been neglected and taken advantage of by the economically superior," said Brian Vaccaro, a junior history major.
Anyone interested in volunteering and positively impacting the lives of people in Vietnam can visit catalystfoundation.org.
