In June, the Ca Mau People's Court had handed down the sentence to shrimp-farm owner Huynh Thanh Giang and his wife Ma Ngoc Thom for their barbarity towards Nguyen Hao Anh, 14.
Their two hired workers, Luu Van Khanh, 17, and Lam Ly Quynh, 19, both received an 18-month sentence.
Giang, Thom, and Quynh filed an appeal in the People's Supreme Court saying the sentence was too harsh.
At the appeal, Thom, incessantly complaining she was tired, denied the charges saying the boy had burnt himself in an accident.
She and her husband also wanted the court to order fresh forensic tests, claiming Anh had had several injuries on his body when he first came to work on their farm.
Anh, the son of a poor divorced couple, said he did not want the court to reduce his former employers' sentence but hoped the court will show sympathy to Quynh. However, Judge Pham Hung Viet also confirmed Quynh's sentence.
Anh's mother Pham Thi Thoa had sent him to work on the shrimp farm in Phu Hiep village for a monthly salary of VND500,000 (US$25) in October 2008.
His job was to break open snail shells to feed the shrimp, do housework, and look after the couple's child.
The two tortured him because he was "lazy."
Forensic tests found the boy had suffered injuries on two-thirds of his body.
The local police said the couple had confessed to beating him, throwing boiling water and chemicals on him, burning him with an electric iron, breaking five teeth with pliers, and forcing him to drink his own urine. —VNS
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