Chronic poverty fuels human trafficking in Vietnam

In 2020, at the age of 19, Anh Nguyen Dang was offered a good job and better living conditions outside his village in Thua Thien Hue province, central Vietnam.

July 3, 2024

A survivor of human trafficking (R) is seen working at a local market in Thua Thien Hue province on June 9, 2024. (Photo: UCA News)

HANOI: In 2020, at the age of 19, Anh Nguyen Dang was offered a good job and better living conditions outside his village in Thua Thien Hue province, central Vietnam.

The well-dressed and well-mannered woman who offered Dang a job in her company was also generous enough to take him with her. His family was assured of a steady income.

On her way to the woman's house in nearby Quang Tri province, Dang recalls being offered a drink before being drugged and taken to a Chinese-run casino in Savannakhet, Laos. There, she was sold for 120 million dong ($4,800) and forced into prostitution.

For more than two years, she was held as a sex slave in Laos.

“I ardently detest human traffickers for the devastation they have caused to my life and the lives of countless others. Their reprehensible actions condemn us to a hell on earth, stripping us of our dignity and humanity,” Dang said.

She wanted to free herself but was ordered to pay a ransom of 150 million dong. However, unable to pay this sum or contact her family, she remained trapped.

The young Vietnamese woman found herself under the influence of coercion, satisfying the desires of gambling customers against her will.

Dang was only released after Laotian authorities intervened in late 2022.

State media reported that authorities cracked down on a staggering 1,832 cases of human trafficking and assisted 8,300 victims between 2012 and 2023.

The government's action reflects the alarming increase in the number of trafficking victims in the country.

In 2022 alone, authorities identified 255 victims, including 102 women, 153 men, and 74 children, an increase from the 126 victims identified the previous year, which included 114 women, 12 men, and 45 children.

It is worth noting that the incidence of male victims of human trafficking has increased sharply, from just 10% in 2020 to well over 40% in 2023.

Most of the survivors, who needed jobs to support themselves and their families, were reportedly trafficked to neighbouring China, Cambodia and Laos.

Vietnam's vast land border, stretching over 4,000 km and dotted with numerous trails, openings, passages and shortcuts, provides fertile ground for the proliferation of human trafficking operations.

Many, like Dang, were lured by promises of lucrative jobs abroad or the prospect of marrying foreigners, only to find themselves trapped in a web of online scams, forced labor, forced marriages, sexual exploitation and drug trafficking.

Some have even been subjected to organ harvesting or forced to pay ransom for their release. Disabled people have been subjected to further exploitation, forced into begging or used as subjects for chemical, drug or weapons testing, according to government reports..

A real hell
Dang said she and other women from Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines were forced into sex slavery and abused by their captors at the casino.

“I had no idea exactly how many sex slaves were there, but I was sure there were a lot,” she told UCA News.

“I was forced to sexually serve about ten customers at the casino from 10 a.m. to midnight every day,” Dang recalled, adding that she was also denied food.

Dang recalls being starved and detained at least six times because he failed to serve the required number of customers.

She and six Malaysian women were locked in a prison-like room and forced to provide sexual services to players on a daily basis.

“We didn’t have a day off, even when we were sick,” she said through tears. “Some were hit in the face, had their noses crushed and were bleeding profusely because they refused to work.”

In addition to prostitution, women were also forced to serve food, water, cigarettes and alcohol to the players.

Mai Pham is another human trafficking victim who said she was sold to a wheelchair-bound man in China's Henan province in 2017.

“I was responsible for household chores, growing onions, garlic and corn, and taking care of the man and his elderly mother. I worked from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” Pham said.

The 26-year-old said that despite working for them for years, she had not received any remuneration.

“There was a time when I dozed off while spoon-feeding him rice, and he spat the whole mouthful back into my face. Another time, his mother made me kneel in the cold of the night because I forgot to wash his feet with warm water,” she said.

She alerted health workers who visited the home during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to her eventual release in April 2023.

Migrant trafficking
Sister Mary Tran, who works with trafficking victims, said many people in Ha Tinh and Nghe An provinces are lured by “migrant smugglers” who promise them job opportunities abroad. These provinces are considered “hotbeds” of such illegal activities in Vietnam.

The nun from the Missionaries of Charity Association in Nghe An province said: “Victims are tempted to pay large sums to escape their poverty by seeking quick income abroad.”

She explained that they are attracted by news that other migrant workers regularly send money home. However, many of them end up taking dangerous jobs such as illegal cannabis cultivation, suffer deteriorating health and sometimes disappear altogether, leaving behind desperate families, she added.

Tran said survivors face immense physical and emotional trauma. Insurmountable debt and travel expenses further complicate their struggle to rebuild their lives.

The nun, who works among local victims of human trafficking, recalled the tragic incident in 2019 when 39 Vietnamese migrants suffocated to death in a refrigerated truck in Essex, England, while trying to enter illegally.

Most of the victims were aged between 15 and 44, with 31 from Ha Tinh and Nghe An, and others from neighbouring provinces. Many were forced to pay agents more than $20,000 to enter England illegally.

“Some families are still struggling with debt and grieving the loss of loved ones,” she said..

Fight against trafficking
Tran said they provide financial assistance, job skills and employment opportunities to trafficking survivors so they can use the money for medical treatment, pay off debts and rebuild their lives.

“Without stable employment, they are forced to do anything, even risk their lives in dangerous activities. Our goal is to help them earn money and lift themselves and their families out of poverty,” she said.–ucanews.com