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The law prohibits the act of keeping identity documents of domestic workers

  • Perform: Loan Nguyen (Translator: Linh Chi)
  • 26/06/2022

Question: My sister has just been employed to work as a domestic worker for a family. The two parties are discussing signing an employment contract; however, the landlord asked my sister to give her citizen's identity card to the landlord to keep as a secret. May I ask if this is legal? Thank you!

The Law Department - ACDC advises:

Under Article 165 of the Labor Code of 2019, employers of domestic workers are prohibited from doing the following:

“Article 165. Prohibited acts by the employer

“3. Keeping personal papers of the domestic worker.”

According to the provisions mentioned above, the act of keeping domestic workers’ identity papers is strictly prohibited. As a result, it is illegal for the employer to request your sister's citizen's identity card as proof of identity.

Employers who keep the identity papers of domestic workers will be administratively sanctioned in the form of a fine ranging from VND 10,000,000 to VND 15,000,000 and forced to return the documents to employees who are domestic workers (point a, Clause 3, point c, Clause 5, Article 30 of Decree No. 12/2022/ND-CP).

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