Loan sharks hunt Vietnam’s poor Catholics
Mary Do Thi Vui works hard at a restaurant in Hanoi on a salary of 7 million dong (US $ 302) a month. She tries to save with her basic daily needs in order to save more than half of her salary. Their children, who work elsewhere, also send their money to pay off their debts.
“Every month we have to pay 1.5 million dong in interest to a bank and another 4.5 million dong to a loan shark. If we delay payments, gangsters threaten to set fire to our house or kill us, ”said the 46-year-old Vui tearfully.
In 2015, the Catholic and her husband borrowed 500 million dong from the bank and a loan shark to build a house and buy a van for her husband’s doorframe business.
But she and her husband regularly argued over money while struggling to make payments to the lenders. The bank confiscated their home while they were selling the van to partially repay the loan shark. Their marriage fell apart when her husband left her and their two children and married another woman.
Vui’s sister lent her money last year to repay part of the bank loan and get the house back, valued at around 300 million dong. She still owes the bank 150 million dong and the loan shark 50 million dong.
“Now I know that we were betrayed by the loan shark who lent us the money at exorbitant interest rates with illegal loan terms,” said Vui von My hung community in Yen Bai Province
Joseph Nguyen Quang Hai, a victim of usury, said loan sharks and some private banks are defrauding poor people by using favorable terms to lend money without collateral. Borrowers only give them copies of personal papers and phone numbers.
Hai, a former compulsive gambler, borrowed 30 million dong from a loan shark to play cards three years ago and lost it all. The father of two was asked to pay 4.5 million dong a month in interest on the loan. After three months, gangsters came to his home with sticks and knives and asked him to pay 50 million dong. If not, they would cut off his limbs. They didn’t leave his house until his wife paid off the loan.
Hai, who works as a butcher, said unsecured or illicit loans are widespread in Vietnam on social networking and mobile applications. The aim is to provide poor people with money to cover medical treatment and the purchase of houses, vehicles, cell phones, and other basic items.
Dark underworld of debt
Thanks very much. You are now registered for the daily newsletter
Experts said at a conference in Hanoi last December that usury is flourishing in rural areas and industrial areas wherever Poor people need quick money in the short term. The practice spans millions of dollars.
Over the past four years, more than 7,600 loan-related crime cases involving lenders in threats, murder, assault, robbery and fraud have been uncovered.
The conference heard that eliminating usury completely is not an easy task as up to 70 percent of Vietnamese do not have access to bank credit.
State enterprise Vietnamnet The newspaper reported in January that the Department of Public Security is investigating 210 loan shark gangs who are lending around 2,000 people and demanding repayments at exorbitant rates.
The newspaper quoted Luong Tam Quang, the head of the ministry’s office, as listing several ways to identify black credit transactions, including lending, borrowing, and capital mobilization with interest rates ten times higher than the maximum allowed in the banking system, leading to bankruptcy.
Hai said local authorities failed to treat or penalize these loan sharks as borrowers and lenders work clandestinely and quickly. Victims dare not report loan sharks to the police for fear of being attacked by gangsters.
In some cases, victims have fled elsewhere and committed suicide because they could not repay their debts.
Sacred Heart Sister Mary Nguyen Thi Phuc has been running a savings and loan program for poor women, people with HIV / AIDS and former sex workers in the central province of Khanh Hoa for 10 years.
She admitted that the loan program fails when many participants go bankrupt while others move to other places without paying back the money.
Sister Phuc said the benefactor-funded program lends women 5-7 million dong each to sell groceries on the street, raise poultry, grow crops, or buy motorcycles to make a living.
She said borrowers would have to repay the loans in 10 months at an interest rate of 5 percent and save 100,000 to 150,000 dong for themselves every month.
In the past, more than 100 women from five parishes participated in the program; today there are only a dozen from one parish.
A pastor out Yen Bai Province said some lay Catholics borrow money from priests to do business, but few of them pay back loans. He said the communities have no resources to support poor people to improve their lives or to repay debts.
Vui said she pays a heavy price for borrowing money from loan sharks. “I pray to God that He will keep me in good health so that I can work hard to get enough money to pay off my debts.”
… at the beginning of the final months of 2021, we ask readers like you to help us keep UCA News free.
Since 40 years, UCA News remains the most trusted and independent Catholic news and information service from Asia. We publish almost 100 messages every week Reports, features, commentaries, podcasts, and video broadcasts that are exclusive and in-depth, developed from a perspective of the world and the Church through informed Catholic eyes.
Our journalistic standards are as high as those of the quality press; Our focus in particular is on a fast growing part of the world – Asia – where the Church is growing faster in some countries than pastoral resources can respond – South Korea, Vietnam and India, to name just three.
And UCA News has the advantage of being in its ranks Local reporters covering 23 countries in South, Southeast and East Asia. We cover the stories of the locals and their experiences in a way that western news outlets simply cannot match. And we report on the emerging life of new churches in old countries, where being a Catholic can sometimes be very dangerous.
In view of the dwindling support from funding partners in Europe and the USA, we need to enlist the support of those who benefit from our work.