Human trafficking in Vietnam
Encyclopedia
Vietnam
is primarily a source country for women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation
and forced labor. Women and children are trafficked to the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), Cambodia
, Thailand
, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan
, and Macau
for sexual exploitation. Vietnamese women are trafficked to the P.R.C., Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea via fraudulent or misrepresented marriages for commercial exploitation or forced labor. Vietnam is also a source country for men and women who migrate willingly and legally for work in the construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, Taiwan, P.R.C., Thailand, and the Middle East
but subsequently face conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Vietnam is a destination country for Cambodian children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Vietnam has an internal trafficking problem with women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Vietnam is increasingly a destination for child sex tourism
, with perpetrators from Japan
, the Republic of Korea, the P.R.C., Taiwan, the UK, Australia
, Europe, and the U.S. In 2007, an Australian non-governmental organization
(NGO) uncovered 80 cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists in the Sapa
tourist area of Vietnam alone.
The Government of Vietnam does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government stepped up prosecutions and strengthened cross-border cooperation on sex trafficking with Cambodia, China, and Thailand to rescue victims and arrest traffickers. At the same time, there were some cases in which Vietnamese workers on contracts brokered by recruiters linked to state-licensed companies were exploited and, in its intervention, the government may have focused on upholding its image of Vietnam as an attractive source of guest workers, to the detriment of investigating complaints of trafficking. Vietnam collaborated with law enforcement from Cambodia, the P.R.C, and Laos
to rescue victims and arrest traffickers suspected of sex trafficking.
The level of involvement by officials in facilitating trafficking appears to be low. There are occasional reports of border guards taking bribes to look the other way. In April 2007 in Ho Chi Minh
City, police disrupted a Korean trafficking ring that fraudulently recruited Vietnamese for marriages, rescuing 118 women. Three separate traffickers were convicted and sentenced from 6–12 years for trafficking women to Macau
to allegedly work as masseuses and then forced them into prostitution. Police from Vietnam and Laos cooperated in rescuing eleven women and breaking up a sex trafficking ring that moved women and girls to Malaysia, the Philippines
, and Indonesia
. In July, the Ho Chi Minh People’s Court convicted six Vietnamese with sentences ranging from 5–12 years for trafficking 126 women to Malaysia under the guise of a matchmaking
agency.
In 2007, the Government issued Decision No. 17, on receiving and providing assistance to sex trafficking victims returning from abroad. There were reports in February 2008 of a group of over 200 Vietnamese men and women recruited by Vietnamese state-run labor agencies for work in apparel factories in Jordan
, who were allegedly subjected to conditions of fraudulent recruitment, debt bondage, unlawful confiscation of travel documents, confinement, and manipulation of employment terms for the purpose of forced labor at their worksite. These conditions led to a worker strike and, subsequently, altercations among workers and with the Jordanian police. Some reports stated that the workers faced threats of retaliation by Vietnamese government officials and employment agency
representatives if they did not return to work. The Vietnamese government repatriated the group, after labor negotiations with the Taiwanese employer and Jordanian authorities on behalf of the workers. None of the workers who returned to Vietnam has been detained by the Vietnamese government, which has stated that the workers will not be prosecuted criminally, although they could be subject to civil financial penalties from the recruitment firms due to the breaking of their contracts. There were no reported efforts by the Vietnamese government to consider any of the repatriated workers as possible victims of trafficking. In March 2007, the VWU opened the national “Center for Women and Development” in Hanoi
to provide shelter, counseling, financial and vocational support to sex trafficking and domestic violence victims.
The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) reported that 422 women and child victims of sex trafficking were repatriated. Officials assigned to Taiwan and the Republic of Korea received briefings on assisting Vietnamese brides. Under the Prime Minister’s Decree 69, steps to protect Vietnamese women from sham or trafficked situations as a result of brokered marriages included heightened due diligence in issuing marriage certificates and steps to ensure that the marriage is voluntary. The Vietnam Women’s Union began a program with its counterpart in South Korea to set up pre-marriage counseling centers and hotlines in key source areas of Vietnam.
to broadcast a U.S. Government-funded anti-trafficking documentary and awareness campaign.
There were no visible measures undertaken by the government to reduce demand for commercial sex acts. In late 2007, Vietnam established a child sex tourism investigative unit within its Ministry of Public Security. Vietnam actively worked with the USG on a successful prosecution of an American citizen who was a promoter of child sex tourism
in Vietnam. A requirement that all tourists staying in hotels register their passport
s could assist in keeping child sex tourists away from Vietnam; however, many short-stay hotels geared towards prostitution and typically do not require registration. Vietnam has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
is primarily a source country for women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation
Sexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
and forced labor. Women and children are trafficked to the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
for sexual exploitation. Vietnamese women are trafficked to the P.R.C., Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea via fraudulent or misrepresented marriages for commercial exploitation or forced labor. Vietnam is also a source country for men and women who migrate willingly and legally for work in the construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, Taiwan, P.R.C., Thailand, and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
but subsequently face conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Vietnam is a destination country for Cambodian children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Vietnam has an internal trafficking problem with women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Vietnam is increasingly a destination for child sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
, with perpetrators from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, the Republic of Korea, the P.R.C., Taiwan, the UK, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Europe, and the U.S. In 2007, an Australian non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
(NGO) uncovered 80 cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists in the Sapa
Sapa
Sapa may refer to:* Sapë, a town in Albania* Roman Catholic Diocese of Sapë, one of six such diocese of Albania* SAPA - the national news agency of South Africa* Sapa Group, a Swedish-based aluminium company...
tourist area of Vietnam alone.
The Government of Vietnam does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government stepped up prosecutions and strengthened cross-border cooperation on sex trafficking with Cambodia, China, and Thailand to rescue victims and arrest traffickers. At the same time, there were some cases in which Vietnamese workers on contracts brokered by recruiters linked to state-licensed companies were exploited and, in its intervention, the government may have focused on upholding its image of Vietnam as an attractive source of guest workers, to the detriment of investigating complaints of trafficking. Vietnam collaborated with law enforcement from Cambodia, the P.R.C, and Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
to rescue victims and arrest traffickers suspected of sex trafficking.
Prosecution
The Vietnamese government demonstrated increased law enforcement efforts to combat trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation and uneven efforts to combat labor trafficking. Existing laws do not comprehensively cover trafficking in persons; however, various statutes in the Penal Code allow for all forms to be prosecuted. The government’s July 2007 Prime Ministerial Directive 16 directed to the Ministry of Justice to propose draft legislation to the National Assembly on a comprehensive new anti-TIP law and broadened the definition of trafficking in Vietnam to include men, not just women and children. The Directive also imposed a level of accountability on all provincial People’s Committee chairmen for combating trafficking in persons. Penalties prescribed for trafficking both for sexual and labor exploitation are sufficiently stringent and those for sexual exploitation are commensurate with those for other grave crimes, such as rape. The majority of traffickers are prosecuted under Articles 119, 120, and 275 of the Penal Code, which deal with trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. The government did not report any prosecutions or convictions for crimes of labor trafficking such as forced labor or debt bondage. According to Vietnam’s National Steering Committee on trafficking in persons, in 2007, police investigated 369 cases of sex trafficking involving 930 women and children victims. Police arrested 606 suspected traffickers and prosecuted 178 cases, obtaining 339 individual convictions of trafficking offenders. Nineteen traffickers were sentenced to 15–20 years in prison. The remaining 320 received convictions with sentencing of less than 15 years.The level of involvement by officials in facilitating trafficking appears to be low. There are occasional reports of border guards taking bribes to look the other way. In April 2007 in Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
City, police disrupted a Korean trafficking ring that fraudulently recruited Vietnamese for marriages, rescuing 118 women. Three separate traffickers were convicted and sentenced from 6–12 years for trafficking women to Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
to allegedly work as masseuses and then forced them into prostitution. Police from Vietnam and Laos cooperated in rescuing eleven women and breaking up a sex trafficking ring that moved women and girls to Malaysia, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. In July, the Ho Chi Minh People’s Court convicted six Vietnamese with sentences ranging from 5–12 years for trafficking 126 women to Malaysia under the guise of a matchmaking
Matchmaking
Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...
agency.
Protection
The Vietnamese government demonstrated growing efforts at protecting victims in 2007, especially for victims of sex trafficking. A number of victim assistance and assessment centers were established in particular border areas. Sex trafficking victims were encouraged to assist in the investigation and prosecution process, as well as file civil suit against sex traffickers. There were no reports of sex trafficking victims being punished or otherwise penalized for acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. The government still has no formal system of identifying victims of any type of trafficking, but the Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU) and international organizations, including IOM and UNICEF, continue training the Border Guard Command and local Vietnamese authorities to identify, process, and treat victims.In 2007, the Government issued Decision No. 17, on receiving and providing assistance to sex trafficking victims returning from abroad. There were reports in February 2008 of a group of over 200 Vietnamese men and women recruited by Vietnamese state-run labor agencies for work in apparel factories in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, who were allegedly subjected to conditions of fraudulent recruitment, debt bondage, unlawful confiscation of travel documents, confinement, and manipulation of employment terms for the purpose of forced labor at their worksite. These conditions led to a worker strike and, subsequently, altercations among workers and with the Jordanian police. Some reports stated that the workers faced threats of retaliation by Vietnamese government officials and employment agency
Employment agency
An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In all developed countries there is a publicly funded employment agency and multiple private businesses which also act as employment agencies.-Public employment agencies:...
representatives if they did not return to work. The Vietnamese government repatriated the group, after labor negotiations with the Taiwanese employer and Jordanian authorities on behalf of the workers. None of the workers who returned to Vietnam has been detained by the Vietnamese government, which has stated that the workers will not be prosecuted criminally, although they could be subject to civil financial penalties from the recruitment firms due to the breaking of their contracts. There were no reported efforts by the Vietnamese government to consider any of the repatriated workers as possible victims of trafficking. In March 2007, the VWU opened the national “Center for Women and Development” in Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
to provide shelter, counseling, financial and vocational support to sex trafficking and domestic violence victims.
The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) reported that 422 women and child victims of sex trafficking were repatriated. Officials assigned to Taiwan and the Republic of Korea received briefings on assisting Vietnamese brides. Under the Prime Minister’s Decree 69, steps to protect Vietnamese women from sham or trafficked situations as a result of brokered marriages included heightened due diligence in issuing marriage certificates and steps to ensure that the marriage is voluntary. The Vietnam Women’s Union began a program with its counterpart in South Korea to set up pre-marriage counseling centers and hotlines in key source areas of Vietnam.
Prevention
The Vietnamese government continued to demonstrate progress in efforts to prevent trafficking through public awareness. International organizations and NGOs continued collaboration with the government to provide training and technical assistance to various ministry officials as well as partnering in public awareness campaigns. The VWU and the Vietnam Youth Union conducted events including advertisements, radio and television campaigns as well as targeted events at schools in high-risk areas. The VWU collaborated with its counterpart in the Republic of Korea to conduct awareness campaigns and establish a hotline for Vietnamese brides. It sponsored a television documentary for women planning to marry foreigners that depicted positive and negative outcomes. Vietnam Television occasionally addresses trafficking in a popular home economics program by featuring returnees who discuss their experiences and how to avoid trafficking. In 2007, Vietnam television worked with MTVMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
to broadcast a U.S. Government-funded anti-trafficking documentary and awareness campaign.
There were no visible measures undertaken by the government to reduce demand for commercial sex acts. In late 2007, Vietnam established a child sex tourism investigative unit within its Ministry of Public Security. Vietnam actively worked with the USG on a successful prosecution of an American citizen who was a promoter of child sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
in Vietnam. A requirement that all tourists staying in hotels register their passport
Passport
A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....
s could assist in keeping child sex tourists away from Vietnam; however, many short-stay hotels geared towards prostitution and typically do not require registration. Vietnam has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.