My association for disabled vietnamese children

[Luc]

Cosette

[Sheila]

100%.

Ha ha! Does that mean you couldn't resist and you read it???

[Luc]

Ha ha! Does that mean you couldn't resist and you read it???

Oh yes.

[Sheila]

Ah, well.....keep returning in your mind to Hugh Thompson....he's the antidote!

[Cosette123]

I love this photo of a young agent orange victim in the Tu Du's Peace Village with Chuck Palazzo, veteran of the Vietnam war who now lives in Vietnam.
The photo was offered to my association.

[Luc]

Thank you so much for sharing it, Cosette!

[Sheila]

Wow. Wonderful to see, Françoise! Healing for both of them and for us.

[deroxat-victim]

great job

[Sheila]

New York Times
by Julie Cohn
15 Feb 13

LOI, Vietnam — They had no plan to break barriers or cause trouble. But 30 years ago in this bucolic village in northern Vietnam, the fierce determination of one group of women to become mothers upended centuries-old gender rules and may have helped open the door for a nation to redefine parenthood.
….

The women’s story began during the American War, as it is called here, when many put the revolution before their families. As peace settled more than a decade later, it became clear that they — like so many of their generation — had sacrificed their marriageable years to the war.
….

Unlike previous generations of unwanted Vietnamese women who dutifully accepted the “so,” or “destiny,” of living a solitary life, a group of women in Loi decided to take motherhood into their own hands. They had endured the war, developed a new strength and were determined not to die alone.

One by one they asked men — whom they would never interact with afterward — to help them conceive a child. The practice became known as “xin con,” or “asking for a child,” and it meant breaking with tradition, facing discrimination and enduring the hardships of raising a child alone.

“It was unusual, and quite remarkable,” said Harriet Phinney, an assistant professor of anthropology at Seattle University who is writing a book on the practice of xin con in Vietnam. Purposely conceiving a child out of wedlock, she said, “was unheard-of” before the revolutionary era.
….

Although the plight of the war generation single mothers was only one factor, in 1986 the government passed the Marriage and Family Law, which for the first time recognized single mothers and their children as legally legitimate. It was a victory for the mothers in Loi, and for others like them.
….

Since then, the government, working with international organizations, has continued to push for equal rights for women and to improve their health and education. Today single mothers in the countryside still face hardship, discrimination and shame, but benefit from government initiatives that started with the older generation.
….


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/wo...hers.html?_r=0