2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

ibes to look the other way. In Hue, government
security officials broke up a criminal ring involving
a local government official trafficking children to Ho
Chi Minh City to sell flowers. In January 2007, Ho
Chi Minh City police broke up two criminal rings
trafficking Vietnamese women to Malaysia for forced
prostitution.
Protection
The Vietnamese government demonstrated progress
in improving victim protection and assistance in
2006. Trafficking victims in Vietnam are encouraged
to assist in the investigation and prosecution
process, as well as file suit against traffickers. The
government has no formal system of identifying
victims of trafficking, but the Vietnam Women’s
Union and international organizations provided
training to the Border Guard Command and local
authorities on how to identify, process, and treat
victims. Trafficking survivors returning to Vietnam
are not detained, arrested or placed in protective
custody against their will. Non-resident women in
prostitution are more likely to be incarcerated than
locals and there has not been a concerted effort by
government authorities to screen females arrested
for prostitution to determine if they were trafficked.
The government began spending $4.86 million
from the 2005-2010 State budgets to improve services
and facilities for returned and at-risk women and
children. During the reporting period, the government
issued new regulations and specific government-wide
protocols for the return and reintegration
of trafficking victims. It also issued Decision
No. 05/2007, which established maximum rates
for labor export brokerage fees and stipulates that
these fees be charged only once and are reflected in
the workers contract, in an effort to protect workers
from debt bondage. The government established a
global fund that Vietnamese embassies and consulates
can tap into to assist in the repatriation of
trafficking victims.
Prevention
The Vietnamese government continued to demonstrate
progress in 2006 in efforts to prevent trafficking
through public awareness. Vietnamese
Women and Youth Unions developed numerous
anti-trafficking information products and advertising,
radio campaigns, and interventions at schools
in high-risk areas. The Ministry of Labor, Invalids
and Social Affairs’ (MOLISA) Department of Social
Evils Prevention conducted public awareness
campaigns targeting victims and high-risk groups. A
legal handbook has been developed for judges and
prosecutors. International organizations and NGOs
continued collaborating with the government to
provide training and technical assistance to various
government and law enforcement entities as well as
partnering in public awareness campaigns. Vietnam
has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
YEMEN (Tier 2)
Yemen is a source country for women trafficked
internally and possibly to Saudi Arabia for the
purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, as well
as a possible destination country for women from
Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. Some Yemeni girls
fleeing forced marriages or abusive families are
trafficked within the country for commercial sexual
exploitation. Yemen is also a country of origin for
children, mostly boys, trafficked for forced begging,
forced unskilled labor, or street vending. Yemeni
children are trafficked over the northern border
into Saudi Arabia or to the Yemeni cities of Aden
and Sana’a to work primarily as beggars. Estimates
reflect that the age of children trafficked for forced
begging ranges from 7 to 16 years, with the majority
being between 12 and 14 years of age.
The Government of Yemen does not fully comply
with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts
to do so. In February, Yemen established a technical
committee to combat child trafficking. The government
also increased its public awareness campaigns
to educate families, local councils, and teachers on
the dangers of trafficking. Yemen should, however,
significantly increase prosecutions of trafficking
crimes, improve protection services available to
victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation,
and should prevent the incarceration of
trafficking victims. Yemen should also institute a
formal victim identification mechanism to identify
and refer victims to protection services.
Prosecution
The Government of Yemen did not improve its
efforts to punish trafficking crimes over the past
year. Yemeni law does not prohibit trafficking for
the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or
involuntary servitude, but Article 248 of the penal
code stipulates a 10-year prison sentence for anyone
who “buys, sells, or gives as a present, or deals in
human beings; and anyone who brings into the
country or exports from it a human being with the
intent of taking advantage of him.” Article 161 of
Yemen’s Child Rights Law specifically protects children
from prostitution. Yemen reported 12 convictions
for trafficking of children for involuntary
servitude abroad, with sentences ranging from six
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