SAIGON CIVIC WORKERS ACT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31098, 29 June 1966, Page 17

SAIGON CIVIC WORKERS ACT

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, June 28. Leading women civic workers in Saigon have decided to do something about what they call the eroding of the morals of young Vietnamese women in the capital.

About 200, mostly teachers, social workers and writers, held a meeting last week-end to discuss the problem which prompted a remark earlier this year from the United States Senator, Mr William Fulbright, that Saigon was an “American brothel.” The result was the birth of "the committee for the defence of Vietnamese women’s human dignity and rights.” The movement’s leader,

Mrs Phan Thi Cua, a former high school teacher, was reported to have said at the meeting:

“I often cannot steep at night for thinking of the sight of 13 and 14-year-old girls walking hand-in-hand and sidling up to foreigners.” Mrs Cua said that social corruption and depravity had become more and more serious. “It has destroyed so many families and caused so many tragedies,” she said. “Disturbed Times” Another speaker, referring to the clandestine prostitute houses springing up in Saigon’s back alleys, said: “The evil is the result of lack of money and cultural weakness. This is the product of our disturbed times and not a disease of the people. ‘These miserable conditions have made people sell everything their wives, children, relatives and friends —for a dollar,” she declared.