Toan, 17, looks after the remains of aborted babies in a Hanoi cemetery
For a year and a half, the young man has buried foetuses in Hanoi’s Soc Son district. Parents and doctors from nearby hospitals bring some 20 to 30 every day. For him aborted babies "are human beings and have the right to be buried in a dignified manner”. Vietnam is the first country in South-East Asia and the fifth in the world for the number of abortions.
Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Aborted babies "are human beings and have the right to be buried in a dignified manner,” said Nguyen Khac Toan, a 17-year-old man in Hanoi who for the past year and a half has looked after Ben Coc cemetery, in the capital’s Soc Son district, which covers 600 square metres and contains the remains of 90,000 aborted foetuses.
Toan got his inspiration from Nguyen Thi Nhiem, a neighbour, who over the past ten years has collected the "discarded" children and placed them in jars for burial.
Early on his life, Toan asked to work with Nhiem to give these human beings a final resting place, but his parents did not allow him.
Now that he is older, he can work at the graveyard, cleaning gravestones, finding a place for flowers and looking after incense containers.
During his work, he often meets people who have had abortions and want to get rid of their children.
"One day, a young man came to me with a small package that he said he had found on the street,” Toan said. “It contained a foetus. Since he was behaving in an odd manner, I assume he was the baby's father. "
Very often, adults abort because they do not want to take responsibility. Some of them abandon their aborted children at the cemetery’s entrance gate.
For Toan, "Getting rid of one’s offspring this way is no different from killing one’s living children. We hope that over time the number of abortions will decrease."
Despite going through an abortion, some parents visit children’s graves and donate money for the upkeep of the cemetery.
Toan can count on the support of volunteers from the ‘Protect Life’ group, many of whom are Hanoi university students who help to clean the site.
Every day, ordinary folks or doctors from nearby hospitals bring some 20 to 30 aborted babies to the cemetery.
The number of abortions is a growing in Vietnam, which is the first country in South-East Asia and the fifth in the world for this practice. Each year, more than 300,000 teenagers aged 15 to 19 resort to abortion, often relying on underground providers.
The abortion rate among high school and university students tops almost 70 per cent. In the capital Hanoi, the number is even greater and many girls and young women undergo abortion several times, as if it were a contraceptive.
The Catholic Church in Vietnam has launched some initiatives to help and support life. In particular, in Bắc Ninh, a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Hanoi, in the north of the country, Caritas has promoted responsible parenthood courses.
.png)
