US embassy cable - 04HANOI1188

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 001188 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR G/TIP, EAP/BCLTV, EAP/RSP, INL/AAE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, KWMN, KCRM, ELAB, VM, OMIG, LABOR, TIP 
SUBJECT:  PROTECTION OF TRAFFICKING VICTIMS IN VIETNAM 
 
 
1. (U) Summary: In Ho Chi Minh City, various sectors of 
society - including the city government, Communist Party 
mass organizations, NGOs, and even local churches - are 
working together to protect victims and women identified as 
particularly vulnerable to trafficking.  A visit to the 
central provinces of Quang Binh and Quang Tri and to Danang 
City also revealed a high level of awareness of the issue of 
trafficking in persons among social welfare, local 
government, and law enforcement officials.  Protection of 
victims of trafficking - including internal trafficking - is 
a clear part of official GVN policy and local practice.  End 
Summary. 
 
MULTI-SECTOR COOPERATION TO PROTECT WOMEN AND TIP VICTIMS 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
2. (U) In Ho Chi Minh City, the Center For Women In 
Difficult Circumstances is an example of the Ho Chi Minh 
City authorities' creative approach to the protection of 
victims and prevention of trafficking.  Officials from the 
External Relations Office (ERO) of Ho Chi Minh City 
government and its Department of Labor, Invalids and Social 
Affairs (DOLISA) escorted Hanoi Poloff and Ho Chi Minh City 
Econoff to the Center on April 23 to demonstrate the GVN's 
determination to, in the words of DOLISA Director Le Than 
Tam, "use every resource to combat trafficking."  The 
Center, funded by the French/Cambodian NGO AFESIP (Action 
for Women in Distressing Circumstances), is staffed by 
members and officers of the Ho Chi Minh City Women's Union, 
four of whom are trained social workers.  According to the 
Center's Director, the social workers seek out victims of 
trafficking or "women in high-risk situations" and invite 
them as "guests" to come live at the center, where they 
receive medical care, emotional counseling, vocational 
training, and job placement. 
 
3. (U) The Center - a clean, bright, and new multi-story 
house in a pedestrian-only section of Ho Chi Minh City - 
currently houses 20 women, of whom two are victims of forced 
prostitution and two who were "rescued" as they were in the 
process of being trafficked.  (The other residents of the 
center are former prostitutes, victims of sexual violence, 
or women viewed by the Women's Union or its partners as 
especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation or 
trafficking.)  According to Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh, Vice 
President of the Ho Chi Minh City Women's Union, in addition 
to women introduced to the center by the resident social 
workers, the center also receives referrals from the Bac Ai 
Catholic Convent and "other churches" through those 
churches' links with ward-level Women's Union 
representatives.  Nuns from Bac Ai also provide vocational 
training for the Center's guests.  Ms. Hanh also noted that 
the Women Union's had similarly good ties with local 
Buddhist temples to assist with protection of potentially 
vulnerable populations. 
 
4.  (U)  Still more referrals come from the police, Hanh 
said, clarifying that Ho Chi Minh City police "know to 
screen" arrested prostitutes to find out if they have been 
trafficked.  In cases where the police identify trafficked 
victims, police refer those cases to the Women's Union, she 
added.  Nguyen Van Minh, Deputy Director for DOLISA's Social 
Evils Prevention Office, described the Center as a pilot 
project; DOLISA hopes to see the Center expand to 30 beds 
within 3 years, and then, depending on the evaluation of the 
success of the project, to duplicate the Center elsewhere in 
Ho Chi Minh City. 
 
DANANG, QUANG TRI, QUANG BINH SCREEN FOR TIP VICTIMS 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
5. (U) In separate meetings with Poloff April 20-23, other 
authorities from Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Quang Tri, and 
Quang Binh confirmed that, in cases of prostitution arrests, 
they indeed screen the prostitutes to determine if they are 
trafficking victims.  In Quang Tri, Quang Binh, and Danang, 
police officials said their primary motivation for screening 
was to develop information for use in arresting and 
prosecuting traffickers.  In Danang, Nguyen Hung Hiep, 
Director of the Social Evils Prevention office of DOLISA, 
noted that the additional purpose of the information was to 
determine how best to "treat the victim." [Note: Vietnamese 
law considers prostitutes to be victims rather than 
criminals and provides for "treatment" rather than 
incarceration.  This treatment is not always voluntary.  End 
note.]  Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai, Deputy Director of Danang's 
DOLISA, said information regarding whether or not a 
prostitute was also a trafficking victim was a key factor 
considered by the "counseling council" (made up of 
representatives of the police, DOLISA, Women's Union, 
Justice Department, Youth Union, and Health Department) in 
determining what level of "treatment" to prescribe.  In 
theory, Mai said, a trafficking victim could be assigned to 
a mandatory term at a prostitution treatment center, but the 
policy of Danang City would instead more normally be to 
assist a trafficking victim to return home.  Police Colonel 
Le Tan Mai confirmed that "prostitution victims from out of 
town should be returned to their homes and families." 
 
6. (U) Ho Chi Minh City authorities - specifically Lt. Col 
Toan of the City Police and DOLISA's Minh, said that Ho Chi 
Minh City had a policy similar to Danang's, but with the 
addition of material assistance to victims.  Minh stated 
that Ho Chi Minh City policy, in accordance with the 
national law on prostitution (which provides wide latitude 
in the local treatment of prostitutes), distinguished 
explicitly between "volunteer" prostitutes and "forced" 
prostitutes.  Trafficking victims, he said, would clearly be 
considered "forced" prostitutes and, rather than being sent 
to prostitution treatment centers, would instead be entitled 
to assistance both in returning home and in reintegrating 
into their communities, using funds from the "hunger 
alleviation and poverty reduction program, supplemented by 
Ho Chi Minh City government funds."  Hanh of the Women's 
Union said that the Ho Chi Minh City DOLISA implemented this 
assistance in coordination with commune-level mass 
organizations, in particular the Women's Union.  Ho Chi Minh 
City had provided this assistance to "hundreds of women," 
Hanh said, focusing on women "in especially difficult or 
vulnerable circumstances, such as poor women with children 
or sick family members." 
 
7. (U) Quang Tri and Quang Binh, provinces in central 
Vietnam on the Laos border, do not currently have problems 
with trafficking, representatives from both provinces told 
Poloff.  Deputy Director of Quang Tri's DOLISA Ngo Thanh 
Hung said that Quang Tri's lack of trafficking problems was 
due primarily to its location far from the Cambodia and 
China borders.  Another reason he cited was that traffickers 
in Vietnam usually know their victims; since the pool of 
traffickers did not include residents or former residents of 
Quang Tri, the province was not targeted. 
 
8.  (U)  However, Nguyen Thi Minh Chau, Vice President of 
the Quang Tri Women's Union, admitted that Quang Tri was a 
poor province and there was a problem with young people 
leaving their rural villages either permanently or between 
growing seasons, and that those people were vulnerable to 
both trafficking and labor exploitation.  Colonel Van Ngoc 
Thai of the Quang Tri anti-crime office said he and his 
staff understood that traffickers in Vietnam used 
sophisticated techniques and that it required "hard work" to 
prevent trafficking.  The police in Quang Tri, he pledged, 
worked with the Women's Union and DOLISA to provide regular 
awareness campaigns, including seminars and conferences for 
officials and village and commune-level "clubs" where 
trafficking methods could be discussed and information 
shared.  According to Colonel Thai, women in these clubs 
became aware of the dangers of trafficking and of 
"alternative living options and opportunities" such as 
political participation and micro-credit programs.  Colonel 
Thai credited the central government for providing the 
training and materials for these awareness-raising 
activities as well as the resources to make it possible to 
hold programs at least monthly. 
 
PROTECTION OF MIGRANT WORKERS IN QUANG TRI 
------------------------------------------ 
 
9. (U) DOLISA's Hung noted that, as a relatively poor 
province, Quang Tri was not a magnet for either migrant 
labor or prostitutes.  However, he said, Quang Tri laborers 
were very interested in leaving the province to work. 
DOLISA checked out companies looking to hire Quang Tri 
workers very carefully, Hung promised.  These companies were 
required to go through the Quang Tri labor service center, 
he said, and sign "labor supply contracts" with the service 
center, which checked out the companies carefully, examining 
capacity, financial condition, and the qualifications of the 
company's officers.  "Many" companies failed the labor 
service center's inspections, Hung noted.  Hung expressed 
confidence that Quang Tri was doing a "good job" of 
protecting workers, based on comparisons of labor contracts 
with company tax returns filed and also on interviews with 
prospective and returned laborers.  Hung noted that the same 
labor service center had the responsibility for acting as 
the advocate of overseas workers with a labor export company 
in the event of a dispute between the two, but added that so 
far this circumstance had not arisen in Quang Tri. 
 
QUANG BINH AND DANANG'S PREVENTION EFFORTS 
------------------------------------------ 
 
10. (U) Quang Binh provincial officials also noted no cases 
of trafficking in persons and pledged that preventing such 
cases in the future was a priority.  Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy 
Chair of the Quang Binh Women's Union, said that continued 
involvement in the lives of rural women and continual 
awareness-raising activities were the best ways the Women's 
Union could protect Quang Binh women against trafficking. 
Pham Thi Kim En, the head of the Quang Binh Women's Union's 
Family and Social Affairs Office, said that one of the 
Women's Union's "key efforts" was to protect women against 
those who would try to take advantage of former 
relationships.  Educating local women about trafficking 
tricks employed elsewhere -- returning to home villages to 
encourage former friends and neighbors to "follow them" 
somewhere "to have a better life" by promising overseas 
travel, jobs, or good marriages, and then exploit those 
promises and their former village mates -- as well as 
helping them build strong families and coordinating official 
efforts throughout the province and across the border into 
Laos were the best tactics to keep trafficking from emerging 
in Quang Binh, Hong said.  She noted also that the central 
government supplies Quang Binh with training, materials, 
guidance, and information about trafficking on a regular 
basis. 
 
11. (U) Danang City officials described their comprehensive 
prevention/awareness raising program.  Ms. Mai from DOLISA 
explained that the Women's Union and Youth Union jointly 
sponsored and carried out half-day programs in schools 
monthly or quarterly that focused on HIV/AIDS, drugs, and 
trafficking in persons.  In addition to these programs, she 
said, once a year, all schools in Danang spent a week 
studying these issues in more depth.  Awareness-raising 
programs that included posters and pamphlets as well as 
broadcasts on TV and radio accompanied these school 
programs, along with cultural and art activities and art 
contests, held once per year, on the subject of trafficking 
in persons and other social evils.  Mai said she was 
confident that these activities reached the entire 
population and reduced trafficking in persons. 
 
12. (U) Comment: The high level of understanding and 
awareness of trafficking issues in the poor and rural 
provinces of central Vietnam as well as the sophisticated 
and modern cities of Danang and Ho Chi Minh City is evidence 
that the central government's campaign to fight this problem 
is having an effect.  The GVN's guidance and assistance 
allows Quang Binh and Quang Tri - and likely numerous other 
similarly poor provinces with vulnerable populations - to 
provide awareness-raising activities to prevent the 
development of a trafficking problem in those provinces. 
The national prostitution law's wide latitude also allows 
localities like Danang and Ho Chi Minh City to develop 
creative local responses to existing trafficking problems. 
In particular, the cooperation among the Women's Union, the 
police, the government, local and international NGOs, and 
churches and temples as demonstrated by the AFESIP project 
is evidence that the GVN's commitment to fighting 
trafficking and assisting trafficking victims is more than 
rhetorical, and has firmly part of ongoing implementation 
strategies. 
BURGHARDT