A family of six members is currently living deep in a forest in Binh Thuan Province, where their children are isolated from community and education.

Gip A Duong, also known as A Sang, is living with his wife and four children in a small tent in the forests of Bac Binh Distrct, about 800 metres above the sea level. For a visitor to make the trip, it would take around a day, climbing trough thick jungle. Duong has been living there for 32 years.

A Sang burns incense on a stone in the forest to pray for the health and peace for his children.

At first, he would make regular trips into the forest for work, returning once a week, and then once a month. Eventually, his financial situation compelled him to live there. Now he has lived there since 1982.

When he was young he married a woman and they decided to return his hometown, in Hai Ninh Commune to live with his brother’s family. They had one child called Gip A Moi.

He continued to make his living from the forest. A few years after his wife died, he decided to take his child to live with him in the forest. Then he decided to live with another woman there.

As A Sang had some knowledge of traditional herbs, he helped his wife during her pregnancy and labour. They had three children but their third child died after one year.

There was a fourth pregnancy, but both the wife and the child died during childbirth. This is when he decided to take his children to live higher up on the mountain.

Sang’s second wife has a young sister named Nguyen Thi Lam Tuyen who also earned a living by carrying resin. After her older sister died, she often visited her brother-in-law and the children, bring them some clothes, food and medicines.

They decided to live together when A Sang proposed to her. They continue to live in the forest and have one more child.

A Sang's family having dinner in their tent in the forest.

Now, his children are working hard to take on the burden and help their parents. They do not have a lot of communication with the outside world and lack standard education. However, two of them have just decided to leave the forest to look for a better life.

"I spend many sleepless nights thinking about the future of my wife and our children. Sometimes I cry because of the feeling of helplessness. I would like to give them regular lives, but I feel unable to do that," he said.