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Vietnam is a major source of human trafficking.

Sex Trafficking: Vietnamese women continued to be sent overseas as “brides,” with many ending up in prostitution. In 2007, there were approximately 100,000 Vietnamese “brides” in Taiwan. The flow of “brides” now reached Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia. Young children continued to be trafficked from Vietnam into brothels in Cambodia.

Labor Trafficking is the much larger problem that remains unrecognized and ignored by the Vietnamese government). The largest human trafficking case prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice involved state-owned Vietnamese labor export companies. The Daewoosa case centered on a garment factory in American Samoa and Vietnamese and Chinese workers. Promising the workers a steady job with good pay, Kil Soo Lee, the owner of the garment factory, held over 200 Vietnamese and Chinese workers by confiscating their passports. He forced them to work 12-14 hour days. He kept them in line by beatings, starvation and threats to deport the workers. Security guards kept watch over the workers. Mr. Lee was sentenced to 40 years for human trafficking. His two accomplices were also sentenced in what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called “the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.”

Labor trafficking was intimately related to and a result of Vietnam’s policy to “eradicate hunger and reduce poverty” (xoá đói giảm nghèo). Sending workers overseas was the main thrust of this policy. The number of exported workers rapidly increased from 30,000 in 2000 to 82,000 in 2007, with the largest number going to Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea. Since 2000, Vietnam had exported a total of 600,000 workers and by end of 2007 there were half a million Vietnamese workers overseas. They sent home the equivalent of two billion U.S. dollars a year.

Vietnam aggressively expanded labor export to both existing and new markets. Malaysia, which consistently commanded roughly 25% of Vietnam’s labor export market, illustrates the overall rapid expansion of existing markets: 27,000 in 2002 (Vietnam started exporting workers to Malaysia April 2002), 46,200 in 2003, 13,000 in 2004, 24,605 in 2005, 39,000 in 2006 and 26,706 in 2007, a steady increase reaching a total of 176,509 workers over the 5 years and 8 months period from April 2002 to end of 2007. There were 130,000 Vietnamese workers in Malaysia by year’s end.

In 2007, the government aggressively expanded labor export to the Middle East, which now made up 10% of Vietnam’s total labor export market. For example, the government’s goal for Qatar, a tier-3 country in the State Department’s 2007 Trafficking-in-Persons Report, was to increase the number of Vietnamese workers in this country from 10,000 at the present time to 100,000 by end of 2010.

The government’s aggressive pursuit of this policy created conditions conducive to trafficking. In 2007, there were some 150 labor export companies approved by the government to export workers. While the number of state-owned companies steadily decreased, the government owned stocks in most of the privatized labor export companies and had considerable influence on the appointment of their executives. Many of these labor export companies were part of an intricate trafficking syndicate. Applicants had to pay the equivalent of several thousand US dollars to not only the labor export companies but also layers of brokers and intermediaries—subsidiaries set up by the labor export companies. The fees could be very high for certain destination countries: up to $7,500 for Taiwan and $10,000 for the Czech Republic.

In June 2010, the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report downgraded Vietnam to Tier 2 Watch List. According to the TIP report, the Government of Vietnam “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.” "[Vietnam] did not show evidence of progress in criminally prosecuting and criminally punishing labor trafficking offenders and protecting victims of all forms of trafficking, particularly victims of labor trafficking and internal trafficking; therefore, Vietnam is placed on Tier 2 Watch List." [For further details, read BPSOS press release here and the full 2010 TIP report here.]

Although trafficked victims in Vietnam are encouraged to assist in the investigation and prosecution process and file suit against traffickers, in reality, Vietnamese court proceedings require complaints to be notarized and the local governments refuse to do so.Additionally, under the law, trafficked survivors are not detained, arrested or placed in protective custody against their will. However, the reality is that some are restricted from traveling outside their villages.

Vietnam must continue to make progress in combating human trafficking, especially labor trafficking. The U.S. government should pressure the Vietnamese government to implement their own laws regarding labor trafficking.

SONA Case

Company SONA

34 Dai Co Viet, Hai Ba Trung, Ha Noi
Tel: +84-4-9762097/9741421
Fax: +84-4-9740276

Case Summary:

Earlier 2008, 4 Vietnamese workers were sent by a Vietnamese labor exporting company by the name of SONA (service enterprise). The workers were to work as maids in Malaysia for Winbond Management & Consultant Sdn Bhd. The workers were forced to sign a contract with SONA just minutes before the bus took them to the airport for departure. When the workers arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, their cell phones, money, medications, and passports were taken from them. This left the workers in an extremely vulnerable situation, a situation which was exploited. Without money, phones, and passports, the workers could not call for help or leave their exploitative condition. Moreover, these workers were not paid the RM750 as stated in the contract; they were not paid at all for months. After being dismissed by their employers without pay, these workers were held captive by their Malaysian broker, Winbond, and its affiliate Princeton.

W&D Case

Companies involved:

LEAPRODEXIM VIETNAM (Cong Ty Co Phan Da Giay): 1/ A11 Dam Trau, Phuong Bach Dang, Quan Hai Ba Trung, Ha Noi;
V-COALIMEX (Cong Ty Co Phan Than Ong Viet): 116 Ngo 88 Duong Vo Thi Sau, Quan Hai Ba Trung, Ha Noi; and
LETCO: Part of the Industrial University of Ha Noi, in Tu Liem, Ha Noi

Case Summary:

In late 2007 through early 2008, a total of 261 Vietnamese workers, all but 4 being women, were sent by these three labor export companies (aka “service enterprises”) to work at W&D Apparel in Jordan, a subsidiary of Well & David Corporation based in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. W&D Apparel operates in the Al Taljamou’at Qualifying Industrial Zone and makes uniforms for Philadelphia-based Aramark and Houston-based Academy Sports & Outdoors. They were victims of deception by the Vietnamese labor export companies and exploitation by their employer in Jordan. They could not leave the exploitative conditions because the employer kept their passports, confined them to the company compound, and threatened to use force against them; the Vietnamese government threatened them with fines and prosecution; and the service enterprises demanded that they pay close to $1,600 for their flight home and in compensation to the employer. To this day, 105 of these workers are still unable to leave Jordan.

Both LEAPRODEXIM and V-COALIMEX were state-owned until they became joint stock corporations with the government holding the majority of the shares (for example, the government owns 62% of the shares in LEAPRODEXIM). LETCO is part of a state university.

To enroll in the labor export program, the workers had to pay an equivalent of US $1,600 to $2,000 to the service enterprises and their affiliated brokers. Few workers were allowed to keep a copy of or even read their contract—many of them signed their contracts just a few hours before departure, and receipts of fees paid were confiscated by the labor export companies at the airport. Many workers were told to sign the contract at night; they then stayed overnight at locations designated by the service enterprises. After a few hours of rest, they were taken to the airport before dawn. Many workers were told they would go to Taiwan, Malaysia or Brunei but ended up in Jordan. The labor export companies have claimed “no record” of sending a number of workers to Jordan.

Law & Legislation

One population that is at risked of being trafficked are Vietnamese going to work abroad. These workers are referred to as “guest workers." Below are some relevant laws related to our work and the population we serve.

Vietnamese Law
Law on Vietnamese Guest Workers:

No. 72/2006/QH11

Malaysian Law

Malaysian laws covering human trafficking:

Malaysian Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act (Act 670)

International Law

International laws covering human trafficking:

1. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Article 3(a): “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

2. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Articles 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30. "Each Member ... undertakes to apply, without discrimination in respect of nationality, race, religion or sex, to immigrants lawfully within its territory, treatment no less favourable than that which it applies to its own nationals in respect of the following matters: ... remuneration, ... hours of work, overtime arrangements, holidays with pay, restrictions on home work, minimum age for employment, apprenticeship and training, women's work and the work of young persons; ... membership of trade unions and enjoyment of the benefits of collective bargaining; ... accommodation; ... social security (... legal provision in respect of employment injury, maternity, sickness, invalidity, old age, death, unemployment....)"

3. Other conventions and treaties:

the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised) (No. 97),
the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention (No. 143),
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ILO Forced Labour Convention (No. 29),
the ILO Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention (No. 87),
the ILO Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100),
the ILO Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (No. 111)