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Introduction
Individuals travel to great lengths and risk their lives to escape unfair or unjust conditions to seek work or an even better life. This can oftentimes lead to structural violence. In this paper, I argue that the Vietnamese migrants traveling from Vietnam to Europe are being faced with structural violence on their journey as well as when arriving at their destination and are introduced to a whole new world where their superiors use them as a commodity or labor rather than as a human being. I demonstrate that this is an example of structural violence by the harsh conditions that are inflicted upon these immigrants in their nation, on their journey, and on their path to a new life.
Structural Violence
As Seth Holmes and Paul Farmer described and demonstrated in their studies structural violence is a form of violence that is systematically a way in which a specific group of people is treated unequally through political, social, and economic processes. This form of violence is what harms discriminated and disadvantaged individuals from meeting their basic needs. Structural violence is implemented by those higher in power and/or social structure. It can often be classified around race, status, nationality, gender, and sexuality. Often people don’t realize or care about the harm they are putting on those in these disadvantaged groups because it has been ingrained in the social and cultural ideology.
Immigration of the Vietnamese People
For decades migrants that have traveled from Vietnam to Europe and the UK have originated from a handful of poor provinces in Vietnam. These immigrants have come from the northern city of Hai Phong and Quang Ninh province, but more recently there has been the growth of irregular migration from three central provinces, Nghe An, Quang Binh, and Ha Tinh, which are comparatively poorer (Le 1). In the neighboring provinces of Nghe An and Hai Tinh specifically many are leaving due to the site of the countrys worst environmental disaster, a chemical spill from a steel factory in 2016 that poisoned up to 125 miles of the northern coastline and devastated the local fishing industry. This environmental disaster has made the livelihoods of fishermen and rice farmers in northern-central Vietnam very problematic, which is why there is an immediate push factor towards migration. Many of these migrants consist of children ages 15 to 17 as well as young adults both men and women.
Structural Violence Among the Vietnamese Immigrants
The most common reason for the vast majority of Vietnamese citizens illegally migrating has to do with the Vietnamese economy. Vietnam is a socialist country, that is a rule under the leadership of the Communist Party. That means all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Over the decades, the Vietnam government has been depriving its people in the rural, northern coastline regions of their basic needs and discriminating against those with different economic and social status. Those living in the poor and problematic provinces, such as Nghe An and Ha Tinh, suffer a great deal of inequality in their nation. Due to the recent 2016 environmental disaster, individuals in the northern regions have not received any government aid to rebuild the environment and agriculture back to safe farmable land, which has caused these individuals to lose money trying to live in these destroyed areas. Because of the government’s unfair treatment towards those in less wealthy populations, people have forced themselves to leave the only life they know and choose the path of hardship and sacrifice which they feel is their only chance to have a better life for themselves and their families.
As these individuals migrate to Europe they have to put themselves in harm’s way, such as risking their lives in trusting smugglers to take them safely and quickly to their destination. Usually, those trying to escape to Europe will pay a smuggler to be hidden in a secret compartment of a truck, or hide in a truck close to the harbor without the driver noticing. Often those smuggling the immigrants take advantage of and blackmail their passengers for their sexual benefits. For instance, the women migrating from Vietnam are particularly susceptible to sexual exploitation at the hands of traffickers. Due to their sex and lack of authority, they are taken advantage of by their smuggler with no repercussions. The smugglers know what they’re doing is wrong, however, because they know that these women are traveling into Europe illegally the women are wary of the police and unlikely to report their exploitation in fear of being sent back to where therefrom.
Once, these individuals arrive at their European destination they are sent to do the highly demanded jobs for low-skilled labor and harsh working conditions. For instance, the boys are usually sent to work in cannabis farms where they are locked inside converted houses and forced to tend to the plants day and night. As for the girls, they are sent to work in nail salons.
When it comes to the work environment many of the individuals, such as those working in the cannabis farmers, experience threats and abuse from their leadership. They are forced to work night and day with little to no pay, and a lack of freedom. As these examples show, the migrating Vietnamese people are being treated unfairly in their own country and places outside of their nation making them victims of structural violence.
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