Vietnam man kills sons, self, as wife files fourth divorce request

Apr 12, 2010, 9:22 GMT

Hanoi - A Vietnamese man killed himself and his two sons, and left his wife and mother-in-law critically injured, as a court was preparing to hear his wife's fourth petition for divorce, police said Monday.

Nguyen Van Minh, 31, was worried that his wife's application for divorce would be successful this time, authorities said.

Vietnamese law mandates that courts refer the first three petitions for non-consensual divorce to local authorities, who usually urge couples to reconcile even in cases of domestic abuse.

On Sunday, Minh stabbed his sons, aged 7 and 9, his wife Le Kim Chi, 27, and his mother-in-law Le My Kiem, 56. He then slit his own wrists and throat.

'He intended to kill all four family members, but his wife and his mother-in-law luckily survived,' said Nguyen Van Chot, police chief of Dinh An Commune in the southern province of Binh Duong.

Chot said Chi's fourth divorce petition had been scheduled to go to court Monday.

Many gender experts criticize Vietnam's over-reliance on trying to reconcile women who petition for divorce with their abusive husbands.

'Reconciliation is actually one of the most difficult approaches,' said Marta Valbuena of the Spanish development organization Paz y Desarollo, which supports programmes to prevent violence against women in Vietnam.

Valbuena said officials should not try to hold couples together if it would damage the health of family members.

'There are many cases where after reconciliation, the couple beats each other even more violently,' said Nguyen Dang Vung, a public health expert who has studied the problem.

Vung said the reconciliation approach was deeply rooted in Vietnam's family-oriented Confucian culture. In many cases, women who leave their husbands are rejected by their own parents.

Vietnam's government-affiliated Women's Union runs the country's only anonymous shelter for abused women. Women who have fled there have said that shelter administrators reported their location to authorities in their hometowns, who tried to reconcile them with their husbands against their wishes.

In 2008 Vung surveyed 883 women in a rural area near Hanoi and found that 9 per cent of them had suffered physical or sexual violence from their partners within the previous year.

According to Chot, Minh was a rubber farm worker who often spent more than he earned and took money from Chi, who ran a small shop.

Chot said Chi had said she could 'no longer stand' living with Minh, and that Minh suspected his wife of having affairs.