Key Events
- Child Organ Donation Bill Draws Backlash Over Student Survey;
- Vingroup Megaproject Threatens Mangroves That Shield Hồ Chí Minh City;
- HRW Accuses Việt Nam of Misleading Partners on Labor Rights;
- Tô Lâm Brings Trade to Brussels. Rights Groups Bring a List of Political Prisoners;
- Samsung Will Assist the Police in Việt Nam with AI and Biometrics.
Việt Nam Says Its Child Organ Donation Bill Protects Children; Parents Want to Know Why Children Were Polled First.
The Health Ministry is defending a bill that would, for the first time, allow minors to become tissue and organ donors in limited cases. But it has said nothing about the school survey that asked children for their views and their personal details before parents were consulted.
The draft amended Law on Donation, Removal, and Transplantation of Human Tissues and Body Parts was presented to the National Assembly on Oct. 21 by Health Minister Đào Hồng Lan. Under current law, only people 18 and older may donate.
The ministry says the change is driven by medical needs. Việt Nam has performed 11,187 organ transplants since 1992, and children often cannot receive adult organs because of differences in size and blood vessels. The Vietnam National Children’s Hospital has more than 20 children a year waiting for liver transplants and about 40 waiting for kidneys, the ministry said. It cited the U.S., Britain, Germany, Australia, and Thailand as countries that allow minors to donate after death.
Under the draft, children could donate only regenerative tissue, such as blood-forming stem cells, while alive, and only to relatives when no suitable adult donor exists. Those aged 15 to 17 could donate to any family member, and those under 15 only to a parent or sibling.
Donation after death would require an independent council to confirm brain death or circulatory death, along with the child’s prior wish to donate and a parent’s or guardian’s consent.
In an Oct. 23 statement, the ministry said the draft “does not encourage donation by children.” It stressed that taking kidneys, livers, hearts, or lungs from living minors would remain banned and that organ trafficking and brokering would be prosecuted.
What the ministry left out was what set off public anger. Starting Oct. 12, its Department of Maternal and Child Health and the Communist Youth Union told schools nationwide to survey students, some of them in primary school, on the draft, with a target of “100% of children.”
The online form required children’s full names, birth years, and ethnicity. On the issue of removing organs from minors after death, both answer choices in the survey allowed it, and a child who objected had to write that in an “Other” box. The survey closed without explanation on Oct. 22, three days before its deadline.
Neither the ministry’s statement nor the government’s own explanation of the bill has addressed the survey: why children were asked for personal data, why schools were given participation targets, or how the answers will be used.
“How much can a 7-year-old understand about such complex legal, medical, and ethical options?” one father wrote on Threads, in a post that drew more than 2,000 likes.
Doctor Nguyễn Lân Hiếu, director of Hà Nội Medical University Hospital, defended consulting children. “Protecting children does not mean stripping them of the right to speak,” he said. But he added: “Listening to children does not mean making them bear a decision beyond their capacity.”
The National Assembly’s Committee on Culture and Society, which reviewed the bill, has warned that minors are “subjects requiring special protection” and that a child’s objection must “always be given priority.”
Vingroup’s Cần Giờ Megaproject Threatens the Mangroves Shielding Hồ Chí Minh City, Scientists Warn
The mangrove forests that protect Hồ Chí Minh City from a rising sea are at risk from Vingroup’s massive coastal development in Cần Giờ, scientists told The Associated Press.
Vinhomes, the property arm of Việt Nam’s largest company, is building Green Paradise, a 2,870-hectare city on reclaimed land the size of 1,800 soccer fields. The project comes with a $4.7 billion port, a metro line, new roads, and a 14-kilometer sea crossing to Vũng Tàu. Scientists warn that the construction could disrupt the water flows that keep the mangroves alive.
The stakes are high. About 80% of Hồ Chí Minh City, home to 10 million people, is vulnerable to flooding, and the government estimates rising seawater costs it about $57 million a year. The Cần Giờ mangroves, which nearly died out after U.S. forces sprayed them with chemicals during the Vietnam War, were replanted in the late 1970s. In 2000 they became Việt Nam’s first UNESCO biosphere reserve.
“There are examples of mangroves that have disappeared because of hydrological barriers like roads and bridges,” said Marie Arnaud of France’s Institute of Research for Sustainable Development. She pointed to Colombia’s Ciénaga Grande, where roads and dikes caused one of the largest mangrove die-offs on record.
Officials say the project lies outside the reserve’s strictly protected core. But in September, Hồ Chí Minh City asked for approval to clear 4.57 hectares of mangroves in the reserve’s buffer zone for the metro line, state media reported.
Local fishers say the damage has already begun. Construction has pushed fish into deeper waters, and one resident, Muoi, told AP that blocked drainage had worsened flooding and killed oyster farms. He spoke on condition that only one name be used, fearing reprisals from the authorities. “They have boarded everything up,” he said. Some residents complain they received scant compensation for land now being marketed for far more.
The project may also be a financial gamble. Lê Hồng Hiệp of Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute said Vingroup relies on Vinhomes to fund ventures such as its carmaker VinFast. With high-end property demand slowing, it “cannot stop” launching new projects, he said. Vingroup is also building a $16 billion development near Hạ Long Bay. “The risk is building up very fast,” Hiệp said.
Neither Vingroup nor the Vietnamese government responded to AP’s requests for comment.
The report comes days after Threads user chi.travelgram said police had summoned her mother over her posts criticizing Vingroup’s projects, including in Cần Giờ.
‘There Are No Independent Trade Unions in Vietnam’: HRW Says Hà Nội Misled Trading Partners on Labor Reform
Việt Nam has failed to allow independent trade unions despite years of promises to its trading partners, and the labor reforms it claims are largely cosmetic, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Oct. 21.
The 49-page report, “There Are No Independent Trade Unions in Vietnam: Hanoi’s Continuing Assault on Workers’ Right to Organize,” is based on interviews with more than 30 workers, organizers, and labor and legal experts.
It finds that the “worker organizations” allowed under labor law changes that took effect in 2021 exist only on paper. The government never created the rules needed to form them, and the political climate makes trying too dangerous.
“Officials in Hanoi have repeatedly made false, misleading, and deceptive claims about labor rights,” said John Sifton, HRW’s Asia advocacy director. “In reality, the Vietnamese government remains deeply hostile to the very idea of independent trade unions.”
The only legal union system remains the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL), which operates under the Communist Party and the Fatherland Front. HRW said its leaders are chosen or approved by party officials, its local unions often include managers, and it has never organized a strike. Legal strikes are close to impossible, the report says, so every strike since 1995 has been a wildcat strike.
“A union has to have its own freedom and freedom to grow,” an exiled labor organizer told HRW. “But the party remains the leadership of all things in Vietnam.”
The report documents how labor advocates have been prosecuted under Penal Code provisions often used against dissidents. Labor activist Hoàng Đức Bình is serving a 14-year sentence under Articles 257 and 258. Article 257 is for “resisting officers acting under their duty,” and Article 258 is for “abusing freedoms and democratic rights,” which later became Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code.
Climate and civil society advocates Đặng Đình Bách and Mai Phan Lợi were arrested in 2021 after trying to join a civil society advisory group set up under Việt Nam’s free trade agreement with the European Union.
Even Nguyễn Văn Bình, a labor ministry official who had worked on union reform, was arrested in April 2024. Those failures, HRW argues, breach Việt Nam’s trade commitments. Hà Nội pledged to ratify International Labour Organization Convention 87 on freedom of association under the 2020 EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It missed deadlines in 2023 and 2024 and still has not ratified Convention 87.
“Many of Vietnam’s trading partners have accepted Hanoi’s claims of reform without scrutiny,” Sifton said.
HRW urged the EU to formally declare Việt Nam in breach of the trade deal’s labor chapter and other trading partners to consider withholding tariff cuts until reforms are real. It called on Hà Nội to allow unions independent of the VGCL, ease strike rules, release detained labor activists, and ratify Convention 87.
The report comes as party General Secretary and President Tô Lâm visits Denmark and Belgium, where HRW has urged European leaders to press him on human rights.
Europe Deepens Ties With Tô Lâm’s Việt Nam as Rights Groups Warn of Unchecked Repression
As Vietnamese President Tô Lâm tours Europe this week, rights groups are urging the European Union to stop sidelining human rights in its fast-growing partnership with Hà Nội.
Tô Lâm, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party, arrived in Brussels on Oct. 21 after a state visit to Denmark and will remain in Belgium through Oct. 24. His trip came days after Việt Nam signed a free trade agreement with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.
The economic stakes are large. Việt Nam is now the EU’s largest goods-trading partner in Southeast Asia, and two-way trade reached €76 billion in 2025, DW reported.
In January, the two sides upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the EU’s first with a Southeast Asian country. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas met Foreign Minister Lê Hoài Trung on Oct. 21 to discuss security cooperation, including in the South China Sea.
“This is a win-win for both sides,” Nguyễn Khắc Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, told DW. Alfred Gerstl of the University of Vienna said the partnership is “crucial” to the EU’s strategy of reducing its dependence on China.
Rights groups see it differently. Human Rights Watch urged the EU, Belgium, and Denmark to demand the release of political prisoners, end prosecutions of peaceful critics, and make clear that continued abuses will affect relations.
According to HRW, Việt Nam holds more than 160 political prisoners. In the first nine months of 2026, at least 28 activists were convicted and at least 39 people were arrested, many under vaguely worded Penal Code provisions on “abusing democratic freedoms” and anti-state propaganda.
HRW singled out journalist Lê Anh Hùng, detained over his articles, and Đoàn Bảo Châu, sentenced in absentia to seven years over social media posts. In an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, 12 rights organizations warned of Việt Nam’s “intensifying repression.”
At the center of the dispute is the 2020 EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement. Under this agreement, Hà Nội pledged to allow independent worker organizations, yet it has still not ratified the International Labour Organization convention on freedom of association.
“The EU has taken no action in response to Vietnam’s repeated breaches of its EVFTA-related obligations and pledges; instead, in January it upgraded bilateral relations,” the joint letter said. HRW noted that some 20 EU–Việt Nam human rights dialogues since 2002 have produced little progress.
The benefits of the deal have also been uneven. The EU’s goods-trade deficit with Việt Nam more than doubled to €51.7 billion in 2025, and an investment protection agreement signed in 2019 still has not taken effect.
Ministry of Public Security Turns to Samsung for AI, Chips, and Biometrics
The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has asked Samsung Electronics to help it build artificial intelligence tools, biometric recognition software, and chips for security equipment, deepening ties between the country’s powerful police agency and its largest foreign investor, Nikkei Asia reported.
According to a posting on the ministry’s website, Minister of Public Security Lương Tam Quang hosted Na Ki Hong, the head of Samsung Vietnam, for talks on high-tech cooperation.
In addition to biometric identification, the partnership would cover big data and the use of AI to digitize and automatically assess large volumes of documents. The MPS said it would also work with Samsung to “research the manufacturing of security chips for security hardware.”
The talks built on a two-month semiconductor training program Samsung gave ministry staff this summer. The South Korean company has already helped “develop software optimized for [ministry] devices and integrated Samsung’s mobile products into the Ministry of Public Security’s equipment,” the ministry said. Samsung has also donated 300 thermal detection cameras to police and fire agencies.
The relationship goes back several years. Last year, the ministry asked Samsung to share its experience and provide training on cybersecurity and high-tech crime. In March 2025, Quang urged the company to “attach greater importance to fully complying with the Vietnamese laws, particularly those related to labor, taxation, and fire safety,” the police newspaper Công An Nhân Dân reported.
At the same meeting, the ministry asked Samsung for training equipment, scholarships, and charitable work in health, the environment, and education.
The partnership reflects the ministry’s growing reach into the economy. In 2025, it took over management of telecom operator MobiFone and acquired a majority stake in FPT Telecom.
“The Ministry of Public Security has become a business empire with many financial interests, particularly in telecoms and IT,” Bill Hayton, the author of several books on Việt Nam, told Nikkei Asia. “Given that the MPS is the ‘shield and sword’ of the Communist Party, it is becoming a state-within-a-state-within-a-state.”
Hayton said Chinese companies already have extensive experience in this field, and Việt Nam could likely purchase ready-made solutions from them. But Hà Nội likely prefers to work with a South Korean company on “this sensitive work,” he said.
Tô Lâm led the ministry until 2024 and now serves as both Communist Party general secretary and president. Samsung, Việt Nam’s biggest foreign investor and exporter, operates major factories in Bắc Ninh and Thái Nguyên provinces. Weeks before the talks, a Samsung subsidiary announced plans to expand production of chip substrates in Thái Nguyên, components in high demand from AI data centers.
Samsung did not respond to Nikkei Asia’s request for comment.
The deal raises questions for rights advocates, who have long warned that the ministry uses technology, including the VNeID digital identity app, to monitor and silence critics.
Quick Takes:
Rights Groups Urge EU to Demand Release of Việt Nam’s Political Prisoners During Tô Lâm’s Visit
A coalition of international rights groups, including ARTICLE 19, Human Rights Watch, and PEN America, has urged EU leaders to confront Vietnamese President Tô Lâm over Hà Nội’s “intensifying repression.” On Oct. 19, the rights groups called for the release of more than 160 political prisoners in a letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission since 2019, and António Costa, the President of the European Council since December 2024. They named 13, including journalist Phạm Đoan Trang and labor activist Hoàng Đức Bình. They also urged repeal of vague Penal Code articles used against critics and legal recognition of independent trade unions. “The EU has taken no action in response to Vietnam’s repeated breaches,” the letter said.
Jailed Australian Activist Tells Diplomats He Was Kidnapped in Cambodia
Trần Hiệp, an Australian member of the pro-democracy group Việt Tân, has told Australian consular officials he was abducted in Cambodia and never entered Việt Nam on his own, UCA News reported. Vietnamese authorities say he and Norwegian Nguyễn Đức Thuận crossed the border illegally and faced terrorism charges. Twenty-nine civil society groups called the case “a brazen act of transnational repression.” Human Rights Watch urged Hà Nội to free both men and a third detainee, Thái Công Trường Sơn, unconditionally.
Government Proposes ‘Talent Visa’ and Five-Year Income Tax Break to Lure Skilled Workers
The Ministry of Home Affairs has proposed a “Vietnam Talent Visa” for foreign experts, Tuổi Trẻ newspaper reported on Oct. 25. Under a draft resolution, the ministry plans to send to the National Assembly a proposal that would allow holders to work without a permit and change jobs without needing a new visa. Their spouses and children would receive residence benefits too. Salaries and bonuses for talent, Vietnamese or foreign, and their collaborators would be exempt from personal income tax for five years. Companies employing them could deduct 200% of those salary costs from corporate income tax. The ministry wants the National Assembly to pass the resolution this session.
‘Help Investors More’: National Assembly Chief Pushes Phú Quốc to Speed APEC 2027 Projects
National Assembly Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn told officials on the resort island of Phú Quốc to “help investors more” so that projects for the 2027 APEC summit finish on time, Tuổi Trẻ Newspaper reported on Oct. 25. On an inspection trip, Mẫn reviewed the airport expansion, an urban tram line, and the APEC convention center, among 21 summit-related projects in An Giang Province. He praised the Sun Group for working “day and night,” including on holidays. He also said localities must finish resettlement first so that “people who give up their land have a stable place.”
Việt Nam Weighs Simpler Tax Option for Small Businesses Struggling With Paperwork
Household businesses in Việt Nam are urging the government to let them calculate their own taxes without hiring accountants, Tuổi Trẻ Newspaper reported on Oct. 25. A draft law on small and medium enterprises, submitted to the National Assembly by Finance Minister Ngô Văn Tuấn, would let businesses with annual revenue of up to 10 billion đồng ($387,000) choose to be taxed on revenue rather than profit. That would spare them from proving every deductible expense. The ministry says about 99.8% of household businesses would qualify. Many owners, especially those buying from farmers and fishermen without invoices, say current rules leave them afraid of inspections and fines.
