2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

V I E T N A M
job service centers and then sell them to gangs
based in the P.R.C. and Malaysia or use Internet
chat rooms to lure prospective victims.
There continued to be credible reports that some
Vietnamese women married through international
brokers have been trafficked or abused. The number
of fraudulent marriages to Taiwan nationals has
decreased, due to more stringed immigration
regulations by the Taiwanese authorities, while the
number of South Korea-destined brides has more
than doubled in the last five years. Vietnamese
women and girls are lured with promises of
employment and trafficked into sexual exploitation,
forced labor, and forced marriage in the P.R.C.
There were some reported cases of Vietnamese
children trafficked to the United Kingdom to work
in the drug trade. There are reports of Vietnamese
women and men trafficked to Malaysia, Taiwan,
Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East for
forced and bonded labor as domestics, factory
workers, or in the construction industry. Some of
Vietnam’s licensed and unlicensed export migrant
labor recruiting agencies have contributed to trafficking,
in some cases charging clients upward of
$7,000 for the opportunity to work abroad, and
leading some men and women into debt bondage
and abusive labor situations abroad. In 2006,
the Government of Vietnam passed a new Export
Labor Law to better regulate such export labor
enterprises and make overseas work contracts and
fees more transparent. The new law will take effect
in late 2007. Vietnam is a destination country for
trafficked Cambodian children who are taken to
urban centers for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
There is also significant internal trafficking
of women and children from rural areas to urban
centers and of street children for forced labor and
sexual exploitation.
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. Vietnam made progress in combating sex
trafficking over the past year by improving funding
and implementation of its 2004-2010 National
Program of Action and by overall increasing its
investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions
of traffickers. In addition, Vietnam has built
key anti-trafficking partnerships with Cambodia
and the P.R.C. Vietnam needs to take more steps
to protect foreign workers from being trafficked
and to protect those that are victims of involuntary
servitude. Passage of the new Export Labor Law
in late 2006 holds promise if adequately implemented
and enforced. Vietnam should also make
efforts to prosecute and convict any public officials
who profit from or are involved in trafficking. The
Vietnamese government should continue to step up
efforts to vigorously prosecute and sentence foreign
sex tourists.
Prosecution
The Vietnamese government demonstrated
increased law enforcement efforts to combat
trafficking in persons. Vietnam criminally prohibits
all forms of sex trafficking through the 2003
Ordinance on Prevention of Prostitution. Articles
119, 120, and 275 of its 1999 penal code cover
trafficking in women, children, and all persons for
labor exploitation, respectively. Penalties prescribed
for trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation are
sufficiently stringent and those for sexual exploitation
are commensurate with those for other grave
crimes. Lack of standardized and comprehensive
legislation impedes more effective punishment of
trafficking offenders. The Supreme People’s Court
reported that in 2006, Vietnamese courts tried more
than 700 trafficking cases nationwide, with a total
of 1,700 victims of which more than 200 involved
children. Vietnamese courts convicted more than
500 individuals on trafficking charges last year with
several receiving the 20-year maximum sentence.
The Supreme People’s Court cited these statistics as
a 60 percent increase in trafficking cases over the
last five years. The Ministry of Public Security police
broke up a trafficking ring, led by a Taiwanese
couple, involved in taking Vietnamese women to
Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore for forced labor or
brokered marriages and arrested 73 individuals and
assisted 266 victims.
In May 2006, the government signed an anti-trafficking
law enforcement memorandum of understanding
with the P.R.C. and began joint cross-border
law enforcement training and public awareness
campaigns. Vietnamese officials arrested former
British pop star “Gary Glitter” (a.k.a. Paul Francis
Gadd) in 2005 and convicted him in 2006 for
committing sexual acts with two underage girls in
southern Vietnam. He was sentenced to three years
in prison, which was reduced by three months
in early 2007. Glitter initially faced more serious
charges, but the government pursued lesser charges
after victims recanted their stories. The government
assisted in the USG’s prosecution and conviction
of a U.S. child sex tourist. There are no indications
that high-level government officials are involved
in trafficking, but instances occur in which local
officials at border crossings and checkpoints receive
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