This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HANOI 002107 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
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: ENCOURAGING TIP PROGRESS IN VIETNAM 
 
REF: A. Moeling-Dunlap email 7/26/04 B. Hanoi 1190 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: To provoke the changes necessary to 
graduate Vietnam off the TIP Watch List, the USG should 
encourage greater protection of workers while staying out of 
the sensitive debate over the character and desirability of 
the labor export sector in Vietnam.  We should push hard on 
areas where there is consensus on what Vietnam can do 
(ratification of UN Protocols, signing of a trafficking MOU 
with Cambodia, creation of labor export regulations that 
protect workers, increasing prosecutions of traffickers, 
increasing training for anti-TIP officers, improving 
coordination to protect victims, establishing a national 
plan of action to prevent trafficking, for example) and take 
a wait-and-see approach on areas where there is disagreement 
about what Vietnam can or should do (specific instructions 
regarding the restructuring of the labor code.)  In terms of 
tactics, to prevent a counterproductive Vietnamese reaction 
to U.S. "demands" we should avoid presenting our 
recommendations as a quid-pro-quo.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Embassy has reviewed a draft copy of the proposed TIP 
action plan for Vietnam (ref A) and has the following 
specific comments and recommendations, keyed to the text. 
 
¶3. Embassy response to emailed proposed G/TIP action items 
for Vietnam to be removed from the TIP Tier 2 Watch List: 
 
BEGIN POINT-BY-POINT REVIEW 
 
¶4. (SBU) Proposed: 
-- Pass a comprehensive law against labor trafficking.  This 
law should define involuntary servitude and debt bondage. 
 
Embassy response: 
The process of passing new legislation in Vietnam is 
incredibly complex and time-consuming, requiring a multi- 
year process of consensus-building.  In addition, Vietnam 
completed (and passed) a comprehensive new labor law in 
2003; it is therefore at the bottom of the legislative 
priority list.  It would be more realistic for us to suggest 
that the GVN create comprehensive regulations on the export 
of labor to prevent trafficking.  The regulations are 
necessary to implement the new labor law, and achievable in 
a reasonable timeframe.  As such we would be asking the GVN 
to do something within its power. 
 
¶5. (SBU) While Vietnamese law does not refer specifically to 
debt bondage or involuntary servitude, Article 71 of the 
Constitution of 1992 guarantees the "inviolability of the 
person and the protection of the law with regard to his 
life, health, honor and dignity" and Article 123 of the 
Penal Code sets out criminal penalties for those who 
"illegally arrest, hold in custody or detain other persons." 
This is sufficient in Vietnam to criminalize slavery and 
debt bondage. 
 
We recommend changing this action to: 
 
-- Create comprehensive regulations on the export of labor 
to prevent trafficking and the abuse of workers. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Proposed: 
-- Provide protection for victims of labor trafficking, 
including the protection from retribution by the offending 
labor company or employer. 
 
Embassy response: 
 
The GVN response to this is likely to be "we do this 
already."  Under the penal code, retribution is illegal and 
the victim has the right to lodge a complaint with the 
Ministry of Public Security or the police if his rights or 
freedom have been violated.  The degree to which this is an 
effective remedy is a function of the health of the overall 
Vietnamese justice system, and not of the GVN's willingness 
to tolerate trafficking.  The GVN is likely to challenge us 
to provide examples or evidence that labor trafficking 
victims have been subject to retribution, and at the moment 
we will have a hard time providing that.  The only support 
post has seen for the "retribution" accusation has been the 
claims that Daewoosa victims were sued to recover the amount 
of their settlement checks and that they believe they have 
been denied employment as a result of the case. 
As reported Ref B, an Embassy inquiry (with the cooperation 
of the Ministry of Labor and the Hanoi Lawyers Association) 
has demonstrated conclusively that the Daewoosa victims who 
were the defendants in a government-supported civil suit to 
recover the amount of their settlement awards had received 
interest-free loans against the settlement amount in excess 
of the actual amount and had pledged the settlements 
themselves as collateral for those loans.  The labor 
companies were allowed to bring the suit only after the 
victims refused to honor the terms of the initial promissory 
note. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Regarding the claims of labor trafficking victims 
being unable to find employment after returning to Vietnam, 
this problem is not unique to the victims and should not be 
considered retribution.  A July, 2003 case study on labor 
export in Vietnam done under the auspices of the UNDP Asia 
Pacific Regional Initiative on Trade, Economic Governance, 
and Human Development, which surveyed households in a rural 
district of Ho Chi Minh City (Cu Chi) with a high level of 
participation in temporary overseas employment (TOE) 
revealed that only five percent of TOE participants found 
employment as "workers" after returning home.  The rest 
either returned to the fields, took up previous jobs as 
public officials, engaged in self-employed handicrafts or 
trading, or (in 25 percent of cases) were unemployed.  The 
25 percent figure is in notable contrast to the 5 percent of 
respondents who indicated that they were unemployed before 
going overseas to work. 
 
We recommend removing this action from the list. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Proposed: 
-- Provide greater protection for Vietnamese workers sent 
abroad by state-controlled labor export companies, 
including: 
an adequate mechanism for addressing worker complaints and 
assuring them they will not be punished for raising 
complaints (vice the current practice of deporting 
"troublemakers"); 
in contracts with state-owned companies: eliminate up-front 
fees for "processing" and transportation that are most often 
a contributing factor to debt bondage; and the elimination 
or reduction in the financial penalties for failure to 
complete the duration of the contract (suggest using a 
bonus/incentive system instead). 
 
Embassy response: 
 
The reform of Vietnam's enterprise laws is opening up a 
great number of industries - including labor export - to the 
private sector.  We do not want protection for workers 
limited to those sent abroad by state-owned companies, so we 
propose dropping "state owned". 
 
¶9. (SBU) Embassy agrees with recommending the creation of an 
adequate mechanism for addressing worker complaints.  We 
recommend removing the specific reference to "punishment for 
raising complaints" and the reference to "deporting 
troublemakers."  The reason for this is that the GVN is 
working hard to combat the perception in key labor consuming 
countries (particularly Taiwan and Korea) that Vietnamese 
workers are an immigration risk.  The current terms of labor 
export contracts with Taiwanese and Korean companies and 
Vietnamese workers stipulate that the workers may remain in 
Taiwan and Korea only as long as they are filling the 
position specified in the company specified in the contract. 
According to Andy Bruce, IOM's Chief of Mission in Vietnam, 
dissatisfied workers do not have the option to move to 
another company within Korea or Taiwan - if they do so, they 
become illegal workers in those countries. 
 
¶10. (SBU) This system seriously reduces the power of 
individual workers, giving them the option to either accept 
the current situation, return to Vietnam, or become illegal 
workers in Taiwan or Korea.  For Vietnam, accepting these 
terms is the price of competing with Thailand, the 
Philippines, Indonesia, and China for labor export markets. 
The deportation of workers who are involved in disputes with 
their employers overseas is a host-country decision and not 
within the GVN's power to change.  We should leave it out of 
our action plan. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Regarding contracts with labor export companies 
(again, we should eliminate "state-owned"), we are concerned 
that we are involving ourselves too deeply in a complicated 
debate over the nature of labor export in general.  A number 
of experts, including the drafters of the UNDP study 
mentioned above and the drafters of a confidential January, 
2004 study by the French Government, have noted the burden 
on workers that the high cost of securing a contract to go 
overseas represents.  The studies suggest - but do not 
conclude - that the debt that workers take on encourages 
them to break their labor export contracts in favor of more 
lucrative market-rate jobs once they reach the destination 
country.  The result of this is to expose the workers to the 
risks of living in a country illegally and to aggravate 
tensions between the host governments and the GVN, which is 
then criticized for allowing its citizens to illegally 
immigrate and break labor contracts. 
 
¶12. (SBU) We have discussed this phenomenon with a variety 
of interlocutors, including such recognized trafficking 
experts as IOM and UNICEF, and the unanimous conclusion is 
that while these fees may create problems for workers and 
the labor export system, they do not represent a causal 
factor for labor trafficking. 
 
¶13. (SBU) One reason for this is that the debt that workers 
take on in order to purchase a TOE contract is not held by 
or connected to the labor export company or to the future 
employer.  The UNDP study determined that 60 percent of 
households with people engaging in labor export sell assets 
to raise the necessary funds.  67.5 percent borrow money 
from relatives at an average rate of 6.12 percent per year, 
and 30 percent borrow from banks at a rate of 12.12 percent 
per year.  Loans from the labor export company or the 
employer are not listed as financial sources for 
participating in TOE at all.  ("Other sources" is a category 
that might represent loans from the labor export company or 
the employer.  However, it includes only 2.56 percent of 
households.)  Our conclusion is that while indebtedness may 
be factor limiting the options of Vietnamese laborers 
abroad, neither the employers nor the labor export companies 
control that indebtedness.  The laborers have limited 
financial options, but are not in a condition of debt 
bondage. 
 
¶14. (SBU) We note that in all of our discussions about the 
high cost of securing TOE, none of our interlocutors have 
mentioned trafficking as a consequence.  As the French put 
it, "it is because of the high cost of leaving to work 
abroad that most Vietnamese workers leave the enterprise to 
take illegal but better-paying work.  It is said that if the 
cost of leaving were less, there was no corruption and the 
selection could be done in a transparent manner - perhaps a 
lottery system - more Vietnamese workers would respect the 
contract." 
 
¶15. (SBU) In fact, in our increasingly extensive review of 
the situation of Vietnamese export laborers, the only case 
of labor exploitation rising to the level of trafficking 
that we can find occurred more than four years ago - the 
Daewoosa case.  Other cases involving abuse of the labor 
export system involve defrauding workers, stealing money 
from them, sending them to export labor markets without 
actual jobs, abandoning them overseas, absconding with their 
salaries, or misrepresenting the actual nature of work.  We 
have seen no cases - reported or confirmed - involving 
involuntary servitude of Vietnamese workers since the 
Daewoosa case of 1999. 
 
¶16. (SBU) What we have seen is a systematic effort by the 
GVN to clean up the labor export system and find a way to 
achieve the benefits of labor export (hard currency 
remittances, reduced demand for social services, lower 
unemployment, and technology transfer) while minimizing the 
negative impacts on workers.  Mark Sidel, a professor of law 
at the University of Iowa and a severe critic of the 
existing labor export system in Vietnam, acknowledged this 
in a paper he gave at a 2003 legal reform conference, saying 
"at the central government level, many honestly do wish to 
maintain an appropriate, even just balance between law as 
the protector of rights under a marketizing system, and law 
as the facilitator and accelerator of that market growth." 
Sidel ultimately criticized the effectiveness of this effort 
(his central thesis was that corrupt local officials, 
police, and labor export companies profit handsomely from 
Vietnamese export labor) but did not dispute the central 
government's desire to minimize abuses. 
 
¶17. (SBU) Considering the sensitive and fundamental nature 
of the debate over the balance between protecting workers 
and ensuring that contractual obligations with receiving 
countries are honored, and the fact that the current system 
has produced only one known trafficking case more than four 
years ago, we recommend changing this action to: 
 
-- Provide greater protection for Vietnamese workers sent 
abroad by labor export companies, including: 
an adequate mechanism for resolving disputes between workers 
and labor export companies; 
reform of the system of fees and penalties paid by workers 
to minimize the financial pressure on workers that can lead 
to abusive situations. 
 
¶18. (SBU) Proposed: 
-- Use existing laws to increase investigations, arrests, 
and prosecutions of traffickers. 
 
Embassy concurs. 
 
¶19. (SBU) Proposed: 
--Train police and immigration officials, judges, and 
elected officials on trafficking issues and how to deal with 
victims of labor and sex trafficking.  Incorporate 
trafficking in persons training at the Ministry of Public 
Security to train law enforcement officials.  Provide 
information on how many officers received the training and 
on how the training is being implemented in the field. 
 
Embassy recommends moving this entire action to the 
"consider for action" section vs. the "must do" section.  We 
believe the GVN has already begun doing this in cooperation 
with the UNODC on a U.S.-funded project, and the recent 
expansion of the anti-trafficking special units to cover the 
entire country is a welcome development. 
 
¶20. (SBU) Proposed: 
-- Adopt a national action plan to combat trafficking in 
persons. 
 
Embassy concurs. 
 
Embassy also concurs with all "consider for action" areas, 
and recommends adding "Vietnam should ratify as soon as 
possible the Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish 
trafficking in persons, especially women and children, of 
the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime." 
 
¶21. (SBU) Tactically, we must ensure that the presentation 
to the GVN is not perceived as a USG ultimatum.  If the 
action plan comes off as a threat to keep Vietnam on the 
Watch List or downgrade it to tier 3 if certain benchmarks 
are not met, the GVN will reject it.  Even if the actions 
suggested are positive ones the GVN is inclined to carry out 
anyway, the offices and individuals working on TIP issues 
cannot afford to be seen to be giving in to USG demands. 
The GVN has demonstrated that it is independently committed 
to tackling the TIP problem, and we can present the action 
plan as a USG recommendation of areas on which the GVN can 
focus its efforts.  If we try to use it as a "stick" to 
compel GVN action, we will certainly be disappointed. 
BURGHARDT