English - CEDAW Southeast Asia

A Gendered and Rights-Based Review of Vietnamese Legal Documents through the Lens of CEDAW
camps, may stigmatize girls and young women victims of prostitution and deny them
due process rights. In addition, the Committee is concerned about the lack of systematic
data collection on the phenomenon of trafficking and exploitation of prostitution.
Paragraph 19
The Committee urges the State party to consider ratifying the Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementary
to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and
to intensify its efforts to combat all forms of trafficking in women and girls, including by
enacting specific and comprehensive legislation on the phenomenon. The Committee
further calls upon the State party to increase its efforts at international, regional and bilateral
cooperation to address more effectively the causes of trafficking, and to improve its
efforts to prevent trafficking through information exchange. The Committee urges the
State party to collect and analyse data from the police and international sources, prosecute
and punish traffickers and ensure the protection of the human rights of trafficked
women and girls. It urges the State party to pursue a holistic approach aimed at addressing
the root causes of trafficking and improving prevention. Such efforts should include
measures to improve the economic situation of women and girls and to provide them
with educational and economic opportunities, thereby reducing and eliminating their vulnerability
to exploitation and traffickers. It should also facilitate the reintegration into
society of women and girls who are victims of exploitation and trafficking, including children
born to Vietnamese women abroad, by ensuring that they are neither criminalized
nor penalized and fully enjoy their human rights. It should also enhance rehabilitation,
social integration and economic empowerment programmes.
V.4.2 SELECTED INDICATORS
Comprehensively addressing trafficking in women and exploitation of prostitution is an obligation
under Article 6 of CEDAW. GR 19 requires that specific preventive, punitive and rehabilitative
and others measures must be in place to comply with State Party obligations. 267 It also
pointed out that poverty and unemployment increases women’s vulnerability to trafficking and
prostitution, so they must be addressed promptly. 268 GR 19 also emphasized the evolving
forms of sexual exploitation, such as sex tourism and organized marriages; hence, measures
to address them must also be evolving and up-to-date as well. 269 CEDAW General
Recommendation No. 24: Article 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women - Women and Health (1999) (GR 24) raises the need for special
attention for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of women, especially women in prostitution.
145
Concluding Comments on Viet Nam 2007 are very specific as to recommendations on
Viet Nam. In Paragraph 19, it recommends systematic data collection and analysis, increasing
information exchange, increased prosecution, improving the economic situation of women,
267
GR 19, Paragraphs 24(g), 24(h) and 24(t)
268
Ibid., Paragraph 15
269
Ibid., Paragraph 14
Trafficking and exploitation of prostitution (Article 6 of CEDAW)