Business community praised for supporting dioxin victims

Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh held a meeting with representatives from the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/dioxin (VAVA) and 120 businesses that support victims in Hanoi on January 9.

A charity walk for dioxin victims last yearn (Credit: VNA)

The official acknowledged the practical contributions the VAVA and the enterprise community have made to people who bear one of the worst consequences of the past war.

Thanks to the VAVA’s efforts to raise funds for those victims, support has come from across Vietnam and abroad, Thinh said.

She said she expects that the State’s open policies will help the business community develop strongly in the future, reaching a size of at least one million by 2020.

She also expressed her confidence in the firms’ active participation in humanitarian activities.

From 1961 to 1971, American troops sprayed more than 80 million litres of herbicides—44 million litres of which were AO, containing nearly 370kg of dioxin—on southern Vietnam.

As a result, about 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical. Many of the victims have died, while millions of their descendants are living with deformities and diseases as a direct result of the AO/dioxin.

(Source: NDO)