PUTTING AN END TO GIE TRIENG CUSTOM

Vietnamese ethnic group abolishes practice that ‘punishes’ unwed pregnant women

VIETNAM’S Gie Trieng ethnic group has called for a stop to a tradition that prohibited unmarried women from delivering at home. The Gie Trieng consider getting pregnant before marriage “very unlucky” and something that “brings bad things to the villagers”.

This practice has forced many women to give birth in the jungles near their villages to avoid the wrath of villagers.

The Vn Express news portal highlighted the case of Ho Thi Thuy, 24, from the Quang Nam province.

She met a man in 2018 and the two planned to get married but she became pregnant before the wedding could be held.

As was their custom, Thuy was not allowed to deliver in the village.

Women in such a situation had to go to the edge of the forest to have their baby, but she went to a district health centre for the delivery.

She was discharged five days later, but her exile did not end there since she could not enter the village for 10 days.

Her husband was waiting at the village entrance to welcome them and take them to the edge of the forest. He had put up a small tent and a temporary bed made from wooden planks.

He helped with the cooking and washed their clothes since no villager could get close to mother or child during the 10 days, until the family bought a pig weighing at least 10kg and offered it to the village as repentance.

If a woman brings her child back home too soon and some disaster strikes the village or someone dies, the blame would fall on the newborn.

Then the offering to the village as penitence had to be a buffalo and wine costing more than US$1,300 to appease the gods.

“It was better for me to endure the forest than to be punished. We would not have been able to find the money to buy the buffalo,” Thuy said.

Luu Huyen Thoai, chairman of Phuoc Loc commune in the district, said over the last 10 years, local authorities and village elders had been trying to identify inappropriate customs and gradually eliminate them.

“In 2015, the commune authorities launched a campaign to eliminate the tradition of women having to give birth at the edge of the forest. But some cases have been reported in the last two years.”

Ho Thi Nhung, 53, who had delivered five babies at the edge of the forest, said: “I had to prepare rice, clothes for the newborn and other things before every delivery and my husband would build a hut for me.”

“In my generation, every Gie Trieng woman had to obey the custom. Many children died during delivery because of poor medical care.”

She said villagers considered a child born out of wedlock to be possessed by a ghost.

Thus, when an unmarried mother gives birth at home, the spirit will haunt other villagers too.

“Whereas, if the delivery takes place in the forest, the ghost will not know the way to the village.”

After local authorities launched several campaigns to raise awareness, in 2016, villagers agreed to abolish this custom, allowing Gie Trieng women to safely deliver at home.

Now a village health worker, Nhung informs local officials if she sees a woman head for the forest to give birth so that they could encourage her to go to the commune or district health centre for the delivery.