Nguyen Thi Hiep, who works at a Taiwanese shoe factory, and her daughter buying food after her workday at a street market in Ho Chi Minh City. - AFP
HO CHI MINH CITY: Treading a familiar path for women in rural Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Hiep found a factory job in dynamic Ho Chi Minh City and spent 16 years helping make shoes for Western brands such as Adidas and Nike.
Vietnam is among the world's largest exporters of clothing, footwear and furniture and Ho Chi Minh City and its hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have for decades helped power its manufacturing boom.
