HRMI 2025 Việt Nam Human Rights Report: Stagnation and Fear

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), a global collaborative project involving human rights practitioners and academics, has released its 2025 data on the state of human rights in Việt Nam. The latest scores, derived from expert surveys and national statistics, paint a worrying picture of stagnation and repression. While Quality of Life metrics remain fair, citizens' rights concerning Safety from the State and personal Empowerment continue to be severely violated, with specific ethnic, religious, and political groups consistently identified as being most at risk.

Understanding the Scores

HRMI uses two distinct methodologies. For economic and social rights, such as health and education, the SERF Index is used to measure a country's performance against what should be possible at its income level. For civil and political rights, where violations often occur in secret, HRMI uses multilingual surveys to gather information directly from human rights experts monitoring the country. Scores are also accompanied by general labels like "Good," "Fair," "Bad," and "Very Bad" to provide context.

Quality of Life

In the Quality of Life category, which covers rights to food, health, education, housing, and work, Việt Nam scores 90.2% on the Income Adjusted benchmark. This score falls into the "Fair" range (85-94.9%). It indicates that while the country is performing better than the regional average, it is still only doing about 90% of what should be possible with its available resources to protect these rights. Against the Global Best benchmark, accessible through the entire report, the score is 87.5%. This suggests that while a majority of people in the country may enjoy these rights, certain segments of the population are still left behind.

HRMI data identifies several groups who are particularly at risk of being unable to enjoy these rights:

• Right to Education: At-risk groups include undocumented Hmong and Montagnard people, Khmer Krom people in the Southwestern Region, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community who face discrimination in schools.
• Right to Food: Indigenous people, especially children, are at risk. This includes undocumented Hmong people in the Central Highlands and children from ethnic minorities who suffer from high rates of stunting.
• Right to Health: The public health sector's High costs and underfunding affect everyone. Specific groups at risk include undocumented Hmong and Montagnard people, people in the Central Highlands, and transgender people who lack access to gender-affirming care. Prisoners are also noted as being denied adequate healthcare, with the cases of journalist Lê Hữu MinhTuấn and prisoner of conscience Hoàng Bình cited as examples of serious health deteriorations in custody.
• Right to Housing: Vulnerable groups include people in the Central Highlands and Northwestern Mountainous regions, indigenous people, victims of land grabbing, and veterans from the former Republic of Việt Nam. Disabled people are also at risk due to a lack of affordable housing.
• Right to Work: The general economic situation puts all people at some risk. More specific groups include people in the Central Highlands and Northwestern Mountainous regions, undocumented Hmong and Montagnard people, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, former detainees, and members of independent trade unions, which are banned in the country.

Safety from the State

Việt Nam's score for Safety from the State is 5.6 out of 10, placing it in the "Bad" range (3.5-6). This score, while close to the average for the countries in HRMI's sample, suggests that many people in Việt Nam are not safe from serious violations like arbitrary arrest, torture, forced disappearance, or execution.

The groups most at risk of these violations include:

• Arbitrary Arrest: Political activists, NGO members, lawyers, and labor activists are frequently at risk. Vague laws like Articles 117 and 331 of the Penal Code are reportedly used to justify these arrests and deter dissent. The report notes that prominent writer Đoàn Bảo Châu went into hiding to avoid arrest.
• Torture and Ill-treatment: Those most at risk include political and labor activists, along with people suspected of committing crimes, who are reportedly beaten to force confessions.
• Disappearance and Extrajudicial Killing: Political activists, especially those advocating for religious freedom, are at risk, as are Montagnard Christians, Cham, Hmong, and Khmer people.
• Death Penalty Executions: This is noted as being frequent, with Cham, Hmong, and Khmer people identified as at-risk groups.

Empowerment

The most concerning results are in the Empowerment category, where Việt Nam scores just 2.4 out of 10, falling deep into the "Very Bad" range (0-3.5). This extremely low score indicates that many people cannot enjoy their fundamental civil liberties and political freedoms. Việt Nam's performance in this category is lower than the average of other countries sampled.

The people most at risk of having their empowerment rights violated include:

• Assembly and Association: People participating in public demonstrations are at risk of arrest. Members of independent unions, the Brotherhood for Democracy, and Việt Tân are also targeted.
• Opinion and Expression: The government restricts anyone who expresses support for pluralism or democracy, and those who criticize government policies or the Communist Party. The report again notes that writer Đoàn Bảo Châu went into hiding to avoid prosecution for posting videos about human rights.
• Political Participation: In Việt Nam's one-party state, members of political opposition parties, as are former prisoners of conscience, are at risk.
• Religion and Belief: Religious communities not controlled by the state are at high risk. Only 16 religions are officially recognized by the state, with all others being deemed illegal. Members of the Cao Đài, Hòa Hảo, and Mennonite Church communities are specifically mentioned as being at risk.

A Pattern of Control

The 2025 HRMI update suggests that while Việt Nam maintains a fair quality of life relative to its income, these benefits are not universally accessible, and civil and political rights are dire. The Safety from the State and Empowerment scores reflect a particularly concerning environment of fear and repression.

Across all three categories, the same types of groups are consistently identified as being most at risk: human rights activists, journalists, political dissidents, and members of specific ethnic and religious minorities. This pattern indicates a systematic governmental approach characterized by control and the suppression of any form of dissent or criticism. As it stands, the Vietnamese government continues to tighten the noose around the fundamental human rights of its people. However, the continued monitoring and reporting by international bodies ensures that information about these violations reaches the global stage, holding the Vietnamese government and Communist Party accountable.

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The HRMI’s human rights tracker can be accessed here.