Ho Chi Minh
City (AsiaNews) - In Vietnam, one of the modern forms of slavery involves the
trafficking of young women, forced into prostitution in brothels along the
border with China or sold for money as brides to men across the border. In
recent years, trafficking in the Asian country has particularly involved young
women and girls, some just out of puberty, increasingly treated as "new
sex slaves".
On 8 February,
the Church will mark the first day of prayer and reflection against human
trafficking. Recent studies in Ho Chi Minh City have found that "Vietnam
is one of the nations in the Asia-Pacific region with the largest number of sex
trafficking victims".
Most victims
of trafficking come from Vietnam's more remote regions. Often from poor
families with little education, they end up in the hands of "pimps,
traffickers and Chinese businessmen" who use every means to "lure and
exploit girls".
However, young
women from urban areas, from both both middle and lower middle class, end up in
traffickers' net as well because of the Internet and modern technologies of
communication.
For activist
groups and associations trying to rescue the young victims, "one of the key
reasons" for the growing problem is society's widespread consumerism and materialism,
which eventually undermine the basic moral structure of the Vietnamese family.
Traffickers
lure girls with the prospect of a job, with which they can help meet the needs
of their family, but once across the border in China, they end up in brothels
or as brides to Chinese men who bought them.
Before they
leave, the young women are made to sign fictitious employment contracts in
foreign languages (Chinese, etc.) that they cannot understand.
Hundreds of such
so-called workers are hired and sold by unscrupulous traders who exploit the
inability or the complicity of borders administrators and government officials
charged with fighting trafficking.
Young Vietnamese
men and Vietnamese women of Chinese origin are also involved in the trade. They
lure their victims by winning their confidence, and getting them to move to a "new
place" for a job that, in most cases, is linked to the world of prostitution.
In 2014,
thousands of young women crossed the border between China and Vietnam, to be
reduced in slavery and exploited in the sex trade. Last November alone, police
in the provinces of Quang Tây and Vân Nam rescued a hundred young Vietnamese
women, who had been reduced to conditions of semi-slavery in China.
However, there
are still many difficulties, some cultural, in the fight against prostitution
and the sex trade. For instance, smuggling and trafficking are treated the same
way. The net results is that victims are not recognised and the culprits are not
prosecuted.
Something similar
happened in 2013 when, according to sources in Hanoi, at least 982 young women
were "sold" in China, 871 of whom victims of "human trafficking".
Last year on
14 December, the authorities in Lai Châu, with the cooperation of border guards
in Ma Lu Thang, broke up a trafficking ring involving women. About 512 people were
tried with 420 sentenced to at least three years in prison.
Trafficking involves
mostly young Vietnamese women, but some of the victims come from Myanmar, Laos,
Thailand and Cambodia.
For young Vietnamese
men involved in trafficking, especially those living in villages along the
border, trafficking in women is an easy way of making money.
One case
involves two young men, Văn Pan Tao Lu, an ethnic Lu, and Lò Thị Chom. The two were
paid US$ 4,000 per woman.
In another
case, Bùi Đ. Giang, a young Hanoi native, tricked and induced into prostitution
more than 50 young women from the villages and towns on the Chinese border,
mostly from ethnic minorities.
Upon hearing
the news, Bùi Đ. Tuấn, the trafficker's 52-year-old father, said he "did
not know" about his son's activities and "the pain he caused to the
victims," adding that "our family is in shock."
Catholic groups,
both clerical and lay, are in the forefront of the fight against the
trafficking of young women and against all modern forms of slavery.
"I
provided help and counselling to a young victim," a social worker in Ho Chi
Minh City told AsiaNews. "She was
found in a Chinese brothel near the Chinese border and was brought back home."
"After three
years, she ended up in China again because of an unscrupulous trafficker, where
she was humiliated and sexually abused. Her bosses and torturers, men and
women, forced her to take drugs and prostitute herself with Chinese customers."