Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Geneva (VNA) – Vietnam strongly opposes a press release on 20 March by several UN human rights experts, said Ambassador Duong Chi Dung, head of Vietnam's Permanent Mission to the UN, the WTO and other international organisations in Geneva.
Talking to the press on March 28, Dung stressed "The Press Release shows these human rights experts' unprofessional manner, their lack of good will and impartiality, and their failure to comply with the Code of Conduct and the Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures Mandate Holders as it relies on non-credible information, raised unfounded concerns and makes pre-emptive judgment on the exchange between authorities and relevant individuals on a particular issue".
He affirmed dialogues between Governments and concerned individuals and organisations as well as those between Governments and human rights mechanisms are fundamental in the promotion and protection of human rights, saying that the Vietnamese Government regrets the lack of constructive attitude of these experts.
Ambassador Dung reiterated that the Vietnamese Government always does its utmost to promote and protect human rights and has consistently demonstrated its good will and willingness in dialogue and cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms.
Previously, two non-governmental organisations, the Research Centre for Gender, Family, and Environment in Development (CGFED) in Hanoi and Sweden-based IPEN, released a document in November 2017 stating that female labourers working in Samsung factories in Vietnam suffered adverse health impacts associated with inappropriate working conditions.
Samsung refuted the document's content, which was based on interviews with 45 out of more than 100,000 Samsung workers, while raising concerns about its objectivity and unscientific methodology.
After the release of the document, the management board of industrial parks in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province in November 2017 invited representatives of Bac Ninh-based Samsung Electronics Vietnam and CGFED, IPEN twice to a meeting to exchange information concerning this document. The two NGOs refused to attend the meeting.
Last year, the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, in coordination with the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, conducted on-site inspections of 216 enterprises in electronics sector, including Samsung factories in Bac Ninh (September 2017) and those in Thai Nguyen (July 2017). The inspection results have been reported on the mass media.
A report on the result of working environment monitoring published in October 2017 by the Hanoi-based Service Centre of Science and Technology for Health and Environment indicates that indicators of working condition at Samsung factories in Bac Ninh are within the permissible limits, and recommends measures to improve working conditions and transparency.
Samsung is one of the world's largest manufacturers of mobile phones and tablets with many fierce competitors, with the most notable being Apple.-VNA
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