Many children at daycare centers in Saigon are 'tortured' while eating.

Continuously hitting the head and face; forcing food into the mouths of children after holding them down and clamping their heads... are scenes that have been going on for many days at a daycare center in Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City.

The daycare center in a dilapidated house in an alley on Nguyen Oanh Street (Ward 17, Go Vap District) has more than a dozen children ranging from a few months to 2 years old. Since mid-March, the "nannies" here have been found to have committed a series of acts of child abuse.

The children are mainly the children of workers and poor laborers living in the area, and their parents bring them here early in the morning. In a level 4 house with an escalator leading to the mezzanine, nearly a dozen children gather on the ground floor (about 20 square meters) to play, eat, and bathe. In front of the door are wooden bars half a meter high, preventing the children from going out.

At 10am, two women in their 50s busily mixed milk and made porridge while the children rolled around on the floor. One by one, the children were called to the corner of the house, sat with their mouths open to eat. Holding bowls in their hands, the two "nannies" continuously shoved food into the children's mouths.

In it, a baby boy about one year old was pressed down on his back, his head stuck in the woman’s armpit, constantly struggling and crying. Even though the boy showed signs of choking, the woman still poured food into his mouth. When the food spilled out, the woman tapped the child’s nose and forced him to eat again. This action was repeated continuously for more than 5 minutes.

Boy's head was stuck and he was beaten repeatedly while eating. Photo cut from clip.

The other woman turned the 2-year-old boy, wearing a blue T-shirt, inside. With an angry expression, she forced spoonfuls of porridge into the boy's mouth, causing him to flinch backwards. The child trembled, gagged continuously, and was hit on the head by the "nanny".

Similarly, the other children also experienced a "tearful" meal. During bath time, a boy was thrown to the floor by the woman, making him cry.

These two women take care of children for a long time for about 2 million VND per month.

Childcare center seen from outside. Photo: Quoc Thang.

On the evening of March 15, the mother of the 9-month-old girl came to pick up her child and burst into tears when she heard about the brutal treatment of the children. She said that she and her husband came from the Central region to Ho Chi Minh City to work as factory workers and had to leave their child here to go to work.

"The first day I picked my child up, I saw bruises on his face. When I asked, these two women said, 'He's very well-behaved, he must have fallen somewhere, because he hasn't cried all day.' I'm not sure if my child was abused, but seeing other children suffer like this, I can't hold back my tears," she choked up and said she would let her child go home today.

The working group including the People's Committee and Police of Ward 17 (Go Vap) is arriving at the childcare center.

"We must immediately stop acts that harm the health and endanger the lives of children," said ward chairman Huynh Thanh Nhan.

According to VnExpress.net