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RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHHI #0178/01 0581013
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 271013Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9199
INFO RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH 5607
RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 HANOI 000178 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR G/TIP, G-ACBlank, INL, DRL, PRM, EAP/MLS, and EAP/RSP, 
USAID/ANE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB VM
 
SUBJECT:  2009 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT - VIETNAM - PART 1 of 
3 
 
REFS:  A) 08 STATE 132759; B) STATE 005577 
 
HANOI 00000178  001.2 OF 008 
 
 
¶1. (U) Per the instructions in refels, post provides the following 
responses to the reporting questions asked in paragraphs 23-27 of 
ref. A, taking into account the additional guidance and reporting 
requirements required by the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims 
Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008.  Post's responses 
cover the reporting period of April 2008 to March 2009.  Due to 
system limitations, the report will be sent in three parts. 
 
¶2. (SBU) VIETNAM'S TIP SITUATION 
 
¶A. Documentation and Sources of TIP Information 
 
The Government of Vietnam's (GVN) interagency National Steering 
Committee (NSC) for the 2004-2010 National Program of Action (NPA) 
against Trafficking in Women and Children is headed by Deputy Prime 
Minister Truong Vinh Trong.  The Central Coordination Office of the 
NSC is responsible for, among other things, collecting and reporting 
information on trafficking victims and cases.  While the GVN does 
not have a formal mechanism for sharing TIP data, information is 
available upon request on a case-by-case basis and is often 
disseminated by international donor organizations supporting 
anti-trafficking projects.  There are additional data-tracking 
systems at the local level in Vietnam; however, they need to be 
significantly strengthened to provide truly representative and 
credible data. 
 
Vietnam maintains a dedicated crime statistics office under the 
Supreme People's Procuracy.  This office tracks data on arrests, 
prosecutions and convictions of traffickers and other criminals. 
Its data and classification system sometimes differs from that of 
the NSC, and is fairly reliable.  The Ministry of Labor, Invalids, 
and Social Affairs (MOLISA) also provides statistics on the numbers 
trafficking victims that receive some kind of government assistance. 
 MOLISA's data is generally reliable, but does not estimate the 
numbers victims outside the system. 
 
The GVN does not officially classify trafficking cases with 
labor-related criteria and therefore does not collect data on labor 
trafficking cases.  This is expected to change with the planned new 
comprehensive TIP law currently being drafted (see section 6.D). 
 
The international diplomatic and NGO communities in Vietnam are 
active in sharing TIP data and information.  The UN Interagency 
Program on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) also shares data with the 
government and the NGO community. 
 
¶B. General Overview and Changes 
 
Vietnam remains a significant source country in a region known for 
trafficking in persons.  To a much lesser degree, Vietnam is a 
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the 
purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor.  While difficult to 
quantify, it is widely accepted that significant internal 
trafficking occurs from rural to urban areas. 
 
Vietnam as a Source Country 
--------------------------- 
 
Cambodia and the People's Republic of China remain by far the 
largest destination countries for trafficked Vietnamese nationals. 
MOLISA estimates that cases across the Vietnam-China border account 
for 70 percent of the total number of TIP cases, while Cambodia and 
Laos account for about 10 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. 
Laos is primarily a transit country; however, NGO contacts reported 
that Laos is slowly becoming a destination country for Vietnamese 
trafficking victims. 
 
Many Cambodia cases involve sexual exploitation in Cambodia or 
transit of Vietnamese women and teenage girls through Cambodia to 
Thailand and Malaysia, often engineered by criminal syndicates in 
those countries with representatives in Vietnam.  China cases are 
more diverse and often involve sexual exploitation, misrepresented 
marriage, or forced labor. 
 
Other transit and significant destination countries for trafficked 
Vietnamese nationals include Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, 
Taiwan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Czech Republic.  Newer 
destination countries include Indonesia and countries in Western 
Europe and the Middle East.  Those trafficked to China, Cambodia, 
 
HANOI 00000178  002.2 OF 008 
 
 
Laos, Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and the Czech Republic 
primarily enter prostitution, while newer routes to the Middle East 
are primarily used to traffic Vietnamese laborers.  China, Taiwan, 
and the ROK continued to be the top destination countries for 
Vietnamese brides who end up in misrepresented or fraudulent 
marriages.  Diplomatic contacts report, and the GVN acknowledges, an 
upsurge in Vietnamese women trafficked into Europe; there is some 
anecdotal evidence of Vietnamese children trafficked to the UK to 
assist in the drug trade, though these reports remain unconfirmed. 
 
Young children are sometimes kidnapped and sold to traffickers, 
often for transport to China for forced labor.  During the reporting 
period, there were continuing reports of trafficking of teenage boys 
to work in agriculture and factory settings in China.  Vietnamese 
press also reported that after trafficking pregnant women across the 
Chinese border, traffickers planned to sell the children and the 
mothers. 
 
Vietnam as a Destination Country 
-------------------------------- 
 
Vietnam is also a destination country for Cambodian children who are 
trafficked to urban centers in Vietnam for forced labor or sexual 
exploitation, although no data on the scale of the problem is 
available.  There are reports from credible sources that a small 
number of these children may also be trafficked from Vietnam to 
third countries. 
 
Internal Trafficking within Vietnam 
----------------------------------- 
 
There is also significant internal trafficking of women and children 
in Vietnam from rural areas to urban centers for purposes of sexual 
exploitation and forced labor.  Children trafficked to Ho Chi Minh 
City (HCMC) and Hanoi from rural areas, as well as from Cambodia, 
often become part of organized rings for begging, selling flowers or 
lottery tickets, and are often exposed to serious criminal elements 
and risk of harm. 
 
NGO sources reported internal trafficking of children, including 
lottery ticket selling rings that traffic and exploit Vietnamese 
children for labor.  Due to changes in the law in 2006, Vietnamese 
provinces can no longer rely as heavily on State-owned lotteries to 
augment their provincial budgets.  This has reportedly led to 
increased pressure on poor families to have their children enter the 
workforce.  The GVN does not consider selling lottery tickets in 
public to constitute "hard labor," although it exposes children to 
numerous criminal elements and increases their vulnerability to 
trafficking.  In early 2008, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung 
ordered MOLISA to draft a new child and juvenile protection strategy 
for GVN approval; however, little progress has been made due to a 
lack of funding. 
 
Significant Changes in 2008 
--------------------------- 
 
The GVN continued to increase protection for trafficking victims and 
witnesses; improve public assistance for victims in a way that 
protects their dignity; increase public awareness campaigns; and 
improve law enforcement cooperation, training, and prosecution by 
the courts. 
 
In 2008, several additional TIP-related regulations were published, 
including guidelines for further implementing the 2007 export labor 
law, as well as an inter-ministerial document that defines 
cross-border TIP victims, delineates responsibility for identifying 
victims, and establishes procedures for referring victims to care 
upon return to Vietnam (see section 5.F). 
 
Prosecutions continued to receive increased attention and publicity. 
 Enhanced bilateral cooperation with China and Cambodia resulted in 
increased interdictions; these efforts were focused both at the 
central level and at provincial level in areas along the border. 
The GVN also began active implementation of its new TIP MOU with 
Thailand, discussed upgrading the TIP MOU with China to a bilateral 
agreement, and developed a plan with Laos to draft a bilateral 
agreement.  The GVN increased regional cooperation within ASEAN and 
United Nations frameworks, including the Coordinated Mekong 
Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) process. 
 
During the reporting period, Vietnamese police reported cases where 
 
HANOI 00000178  003.2 OF 008 
 
 
pregnant woman agreed to sell their children to organized 
trafficking networks.  The network took the women to China, 
promising to pay them once the children were born.  Instead, the 
network sold the child for adoption and the women for forced labor 
or sexual exploitation. 
 
Specific highlights include: 
 
-- In July 2008, the IOM, with support from the State Department's 
Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, launched a second 
victim assistance and assessment center in An Giang province in the 
Mekong Delta. 
 
-- In August 2008, the GVN introduced a new training manual 
entitled, "Inter-Agency Training Manual on the Prevention and 
Suppression of Human Trafficking."  Developed in collaboration with 
international NGOs and victim advocacy organizations, the training 
manual provides an overview of human trafficking and explains 
international and domestic legal documents and GVN laws and policies 
regarding the trafficking issue, as well as describing assistance 
available to victims.  The GVN distributed 5,000 copies to local 
level officials and agencies.  The manual was applauded by NGOs and 
victim advocates as an important effort to provide relevant agencies 
training and insight on human trafficking issues. 
 
-- In October 2008, the GVN submitted a proposal to the National 
Assembly to amend articles 119 and 120 of the penal code to 
strengthen the regulations on trafficking in women and children, 
including adding language to include trafficking in men over the age 
of 16 and adding property confiscation and increased fines to the 
list of possible penalties.  The NSC expects National Assembly 
approval for these amendments in 2009. 
 
-- In December 2008 the Asian Regional Trafficking in Persons 
(ARTIP) project opened an office in Hanoi and began a project to 
provide training to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the 
Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and legal institutions.  This project is 
designed as a follow on to the successful UNODC TIP project that 
ended in 2007. 
 
¶C.  Conditions Faced by Victims 
 
Vietnamese trafficking victims faced a variety of conditions 
including physical and mental abuse, sexual abuse and assault, debt 
bondage, indentured servitude, harsh working conditions, and 
imprisonment.  Victims reported being forced into sex acts, 
threatened, held without adequate food and water, and beaten by 
their traffickers. 
 
Post received credible reports of criminal rings that buy children 
in Hue and forces them to work on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City at 
night.  NGOs reported that children and adolescents are trafficked 
to work in factories seven days a week, and up to 16 hours per day, 
for no payment and with no access to health services or social 
support. 
 
MOLISA reported that some workers recruited and sent abroad by 
state-owned labor companies suffered conditions akin to involuntary 
servitude or forced labor within the Malaysian and Thai construction 
industries. 
 
¶D.  Groups Vulnerable to TIP 
 
Vietnamese trafficking victims come from almost all provinces and 
cities in Vietnam, but most were concentrated in certain northern 
and southern border provinces, especially the Mekong Delta and 
central province of Thanh Hoa.  In general, most northern and 
central trafficking victims are trafficked to China, while victims 
in the south are primarily trafficked to Cambodia for prostitution 
or for transit to other Southeast Asian countries.  One NGO reported 
an increase in southern victims trafficked to Laos.  Thanh Hoa 
province, south of Hanoi has traditionally been a major source of 
migrant populations in northern Vietnam.  The Mekong Delta provinces 
of An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Hau Giang, Long An and Tay Ninh 
have the highest number of victims trafficked to Cambodia. 
 
The highest percentage of trafficking victims in Vietnam consists of 
undereducated rural women between 18 and 40 years of age in cases 
involving sexual exploitation.  Increasingly, these same types of 
women are becoming victims of labor trafficking as well.  Multiple 
sources reported that more than 90 percent of trafficking victims 
 
HANOI 00000178  004.2 OF 008 
 
 
have less than a high school education and report their occupations 
as either unemployed or farmer. 
 
There is no data available on male sex-related trafficking in 
Vietnam, but the level is believed to be low.  However, MOLISA and 
the media continued to report numerous cases of male labor 
trafficking to Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Thailand and countries in 
the Middle East, often involving the construction and fishing 
industries. 
 
Vietnamese laborers are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking as 
the GVN struggles to strike a balance between increasing export 
labor and protecting its workers overseas from labor trafficking. 
At the end of 2008, an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese workers were in 
40 countries and brought in between USD $1.6 billion and $2 billion 
in annual remittances, according to MOLISA's Department of Overseas 
Labor (DOLAB).  80 percent worked in agriculture, fishing, or 
construction.  In 2008, Vietnam sent approximately 85,000 workers 
overseas, with a goal of 100,000 per year by 2010.  Vietnamese 
workers are predominately traveling to Southeast Asia and the Middle 
East: Malaysia (100,000); Taiwan (70,000+); South Korea (50,000); 
Japan (30,000); United Arab Emirates (10,000); Qatar (8,000); rest 
of the Middle East (5,000); smaller groups were going to Eastern 
Europe, Macau, Hong Kong and Cyprus.  MOLISA attempts to establish 
MOUs with all labor destination governments, but enforcement of 
these agreements is weak.  Although the global economic downturn has 
reduced the demand for labor in traditional markets, the GVN is 
seeking alternate destinations and still aims to increase labor 
exports.  Vietnamese government officials are only just beginning to 
recognize the risks of trafficking and exploitation inherent in 
exporting large numbers of workers overseas without adequate 
protections and enforcement mechanisms. 
 
Street children are at high risk to fall victim to internal 
trafficking.  Past official estimates place the number of street 
children at 21,000, but the actual figure is likely higher.  One NGO 
estimates that in Hanoi, 25 percent of street children have run away 
from home; the other 75 percent have travelled to Hanoi with their 
parents' permission, attracted by increased economic opportunities 
in urban areas. 
 
¶E.  Traffickers and Their Methods 
 
There has been no systematic analysis of who the traffickers are, 
but in interviews with trafficking victims, their relatives and 
friends, as well as in numerous press reports, traffickers have 
usually been described as residents or former residents of the 
victims' provinces or communities.  In some cases, the traffickers 
were former trafficking victims themselves.  Some are cross-border 
married couples (Malaysian husband, Vietnamese wife, etc.); others 
are described as traders or businesspeople.  With economic growth, 
criminal organizations sought to take advantage of increased 
exposure to international markets, expanded use of the Internet, and 
a growing gap between rich and poor to exploit persons at risk and 
develop trafficking networks. 
 
NGOs also documented many TIP cases involving complicated referral 
chains that begin with a sibling, neighbor or friend making a 
referral to somebody else who passes the individual on to a third 
person or group, and so on.  In such cases, individuals further down 
the chain likely do not know the final destination of the victim and 
the responsible trafficker is difficult to identify. 
 
Employment opportunities, marriage opportunities and tourism 
continued to be primary solicitation methods most often used by 
traffickers.  The usual tactic of traffickers is to offer a 
so-called "easy" job as a trader, waitress or domestic helper in 
either China or Cambodia.  Victims are generally moved across the 
Chinese and Cambodian borders without documents.  Vietnam's long 
land borders with China, Laos and Cambodia are extremely porous and 
difficult to control, and traffickers are known to frequently use 
forest, mountain and river routes.  Vietnamese commercial sex 
workers in Cambodia also reported they could pay a truck driver USD 
$25 to smuggle them through the border from Cambodia to Vietnam.  In 
more than 80 percent of cases where the victim was interviewed, 
victims crossed the border away from legal border checkpoints.  In 
cases involving victims trafficked to more distant destinations such 
as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Malaysia, MPS officials stated that 
traffickers disguise victims as tourists or workers in a labor 
export program. 
 
 
HANOI 00000178  005.2 OF 008 
 
 
Individual opportunists, informal networks, and some organized 
groups lured poor, often rural, women with promises of jobs or 
marriage and forced them to work as prostitutes.  Family relatives 
were often involved in trafficking cases.  In some cases traffickers 
paid families several hundred dollars in exchange for allowing their 
daughters to go to Cambodia for an "employment offer."  Many victims 
faced strong pressure to make significant contributions to the 
family income; others were offered lucrative jobs by acquaintances. 
Increasingly, those seeking work are offered "good" jobs by either a 
state-licensed export labor recruitment company or an unofficial 
recruiter, but end up in various destinations, such as Malaysia, 
Thailand, or the Middle East, working in substandard conditions for 
little to no pay.  False advertising, debt bondage, confiscation of 
documents, and threats of deportation were other methods commonly 
used by the traffickers, family members, and employers. 
 
Traffickers continued to attempt to lure unmarried rural women into 
fraudulent or misrepresented marriages to foreign nationals, 
primarily from China, Taiwan and Korea. There was reported 
trafficking in women to the Macau Special Administrative Region of 
China with the assistance of organizations in China that were 
ostensibly marriage service bureaus, international labor 
organizations, and travel agencies. 
 
Since 1995, the VWU estimates that as many as 100,000 Vietnamese 
women have gone to Taiwan as brides, while the South Korean 
government reported that there are currently 33,000 Vietnamese 
brides living in South Korea, up from 10,000 reported at the end of 
¶2006.  Vietnamese and Taiwanese estimates of the number of 
Vietnamese women who have encountered difficulties in Taiwan range 
from ten to fifteen percent of the total, though only a small 
portion of these cases meet the definition of trafficking.  In terms 
of actual trafficking victims to Taiwan and South Korea, authorities 
and international NGOs estimate that a few hundred per year are 
trafficked, but hard statistics are difficult to obtain.  The VWU 
and several NGOs note that these cases mostly involve women from Ho 
Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta who marry men from Taiwan and 
South Korea and are subsequently forced into prostitution or 
domestic servitude.  During the reporting period, there continued to 
be fewer Taiwan marriages, while the rate of Korean marriages 
increased, a trend that continued from last year. 
 
¶3. (SBU) GOVERNMENT OF VIETNAM'S (GVN) ANTI-TIP EFFORTS 
 
¶A.  Acknowledgement of TIP 
 
The GVN fully acknowledges that trafficking is a problem in Vietnam 
and is actively engaged in the fight against TIP.  The GVN 
understands the issue and its dimensions, is committed to tackling 
the problem, and has cooperated very well with the international 
donor community, including the USG.  Foreign governments, 
international organizations, NGOs and local mass organizations are 
active in Vietnam in combating TIP, and the GVN welcomes their 
support and works cooperatively with them.  The GVN continued its 
strong commitment to the second phase of the COMMIT process and is 
participating in and implementing the 2008-2010 plan of action. 
 
¶B.  Lead Agencies and Interagency Cooperation 
 
The GVN's National Steering Committee (NSC) on anti-trafficking, 
also known as Committee 130, remained the government's key 
interagency coordinating body.  The 2004 National Program of Action 
(NPA) established the NSC and specific funding mechanisms for the 
2004-2010 period.  The NPA assigns specific roles to government 
agencies under the overall direction of the MPS, thus eliminating 
some of the confusion regarding overlapping jurisdictions.  In 
addition to overall responsibility for coordinating GVN interagency 
efforts, MPS also has a separate investigative unit dedicated to 
anti-trafficking enforcement.  Other GVN agencies involved in 
anti-TIP are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA); the Ministry of 
Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA); the Border Guard 
Command (under the Ministry of Defense); the Vietnam Women's Union 
(VWU) and Vietnam Youth Union mass organizations; the Ministry of 
Justice (MOJ); the Supreme People's Court; and the Supreme People's 
Procuracy.  The Ministries of Finance and Planning and Investment 
play a role in the budget process.  The Ministry of Culture, Sport 
and Tourism also participates in the NSC as it plays a role in 
combating child sex tourism and tourist demand for commercial sex. 
Vietnam's legislature, the National Assembly, plays a key role in 
legislation and, to a degree, international cooperation.  Each 
agency is assigned specific responsibilities under the NPA. 
 
HANOI 00000178  006.2 OF 008 
 
 
 
¶C.  Limitations and Challenges Faced by the GVN 
 
The main anti-TIP challenges for the GVN have been a lack of 
resources, cumbersome mechanisms for inter-agency cooperation 
(although this continues to improve), poorly coordinated enforcement 
of existing legal instruments across the country, and a legal 
infrastructure that is still ill suited to supporting the 
identification and prosecution of TIP cases.  There also continues 
to be tension between the GVN's efforts to fight TIP and its 
attempts to ease unemployment and boost remittance revenues through 
increased labor exports. 
 
As a developing country with a yearly per capita income of 
approximately USD $1,023, Vietnam's primary obstacle in combating 
TIP is a lack of resources.  Funding for all public institutions is 
inadequate, and TIP is no exception.  A lack of resources seriously 
hampers the GVN's efforts, both on the law enforcement and victim 
protection sides.  In large part because of this, the training and 
professionalism of all officials in the process needs improvement. 
Further, there is a significant shortage of qualified social workers 
and counselors equipped to provide professional quality services to 
victims.  Government-provided financial resources to assist victims 
in rebuilding their lives are meager, but are generally proportional 
to level of development and overall lack of social services in rural 
Vietnam. 
 
Another major obstacle to the GVN's anti-TIP efforts is the 
extremely rugged, porous and difficult-to-police borders with 
Cambodia, Laos and China.  Smuggling of all kinds is a problem in 
Vietnam, and physical interdiction of trafficking cases is 
particularly difficult.  This is especially true in the Mekong Delta 
and along the mountainous northern border with China where many 
border crossings take place via waterways and footpaths away from 
official border gates. 
 
Other challenges include a lack of standardized and comprehensive 
legislation and the limited ability of the national government to 
enforce implementation at the provincial, district and commune 
levels.  Although Vietnam has several laws against trafficking and 
established a national framework, legal sanctions against 
trafficking are still scattered throughout the GVN penal code and 
can be subject to diverse interpretation, definitions and sentencing 
guidelines.  A new, comprehensive anti-trafficking law is being 
drafted in part to reconcile the various laws and to be in full 
compliance with UN conventions.  A comprehensive, streamlined new 
law would undoubtedly assist the GVN's anti-TIP activities. 
 
With Vietnam's rapid economic transition, the use of the Internet by 
international and domestic criminal networks, including human 
traffickers, has also added a significant new dimension to the 
problem in Vietnam and additional challenges for the GVN's 
resource-strapped law enforcement establishment. 
 
¶D.  GVN Monitoring and Assessments 
 
The GVN's Central Office under the NSC is responsible for, among 
other things, helping the Committee prepare anti-TIP work plans, 
campaigns and projects, and investigating and evaluating their 
outcomes.  While it is also responsible for disseminating the 
results of the GVN's anti-trafficking efforts, the GVN does not have 
a formal mechanism for sharing TIP monitoring and evaluation 
information. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS 
 
¶A.  Existing Laws Against TIP 
 
Most traffickers in Vietnam are prosecuted under Penal Code Articles 
119 and 120.  Article 119 concerns trafficking in women and provides 
for penalties ranging from five to twenty years in prison.  Article 
120 concerns trafficking in children and penalties range from three 
years to life in prison.  Trafficking in women and children for all 
purposes is covered under these articles.  International trafficking 
for the specific purpose of labor exploitation is covered in Vietnam 
under Penal Code 275 (entitled "organizing and/or coercing other 
persons to flee abroad or to stay abroad illegally").  GVN 
authorities, including the MOJ, recognize that although most forms 
of trafficking can be prosecuted one way or another under the 
Vietnamese Penal Code, existing legislation in Vietnam does not 
specifically focus on trafficking in persons in a comprehensive 
 
HANOI 00000178  007.2 OF 008 
 
 
manner. 
 
Other articles under the 1999 Penal Code that directly or indirectly 
relate to the prevention and combat of TIP include:  Article 111 on 
rape; Article 112 on raping children; Article 113 on forcible sexual 
intercourse; Article 115 on having sexual intercourse with children; 
Article 116 on obscenity against children; Article 245 on harboring 
prostitution; Article 255 on mediating prostitution and Article 256 
on procuring sex from adolescents. 
 
In 2006, the Prime Minister's Decree 69 amended the law on marriages 
"having a foreign factor," which now requires the Vietnamese spouse 
to interview with local authorities within 50 days of marriage to 
ensure that the marriage is voluntary, that there are sufficient 
language skills for basic communication and that each participant 
understands each other's family situation.  The Decree also 
restricts large gaps in age between marrying parties. 
 
Vietnamese law does not specifically address the issue of 
trafficking in men for sexual purposes; however, there are no 
indications that this is a significant problem in Vietnam.  If it 
occurred, it would be possible to prosecute the traffickers under 
laws criminalizing the procurement of prostitutes, according to MOJ. 
 GVN officials have recognized this as a shortcoming and reported 
that men would be included in the definition in the new anti-TIP 
law. 
 
In public TIP-related documents, the GVN also highlights that it is 
a signatory to the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of 
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Article 6 of which references 
trafficking in women.  Vietnam is also a signatory to the Convention 
on the Rights of the Children (CRC).  Vietnam signed the UN 
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) in December 
2000 but has not yet ratified it.  Vietnam has yet to sign the 
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. 
UNODC reported that the GVN intends to ratify UNTOC together with 
its Protocol on Human Trafficking in 2009. 
 
The Vietnamese Labor Code contains a section on "Vietnamese working 
abroad."  The Code includes the requirement that enterprises have a 
permit to send workers abroad, thus ensuring some measure of 
government control over the system.  The Code details the rights and 
obligations of both workers and enterprises, and includes provisions 
requiring all enterprises "to manage and protect the interests of 
laborers during the period of working abroad under their contracts 
in accordance with the law of Vietnam and the law of the foreign 
country;" "to pay compensation for damage to the laborer caused by 
the breach of the contract by the enterprise;" and, "to complain to 
the authorized State body against breaches of the laws in the field 
of labor export." 
 
An updated Decree (July 2003) provides the legal mechanism to 
implement these provisions.  This regulation requires that companies 
"monitor, manage and protect the legal rights of labor during their 
time of working abroad."  Enterprises are required to regularly 
inspect overseas workplaces both before and after signing labor 
contracts.  Information from these inspections must be included in 
the registration of a labor export contract submitted to MOLISA. 
According to one labor export company, MOLISA carried out both 
scheduled and surprise inspections of labor export companies. 
 
The July 2003 implementation Decree highlights the conditions for 
granting and revoking licenses for labor export.  In 2008, Vietnam 
reported 158 licensed labor export companies - some are State 
enterprises "owned" by a wide range of ministries and provinces, 
while others are private companies.  Since the implementation of the 
2003 Decree, MOLISA has been reviewing current licenses and new 
applications.  MOLISA does not hesitate to deny applications for new 
companies that do not meet necessary conditions under the Decree. 
MOLISA also used its power to revoke and suspend the licenses of 
"irresponsible" labor export companies.  Press reports indicate that 
during the reporting period, MOLISA revoked the licenses of five 
companies.  For more serious abuses of worker's rights, MOLISA can 
coordinate with MPS to prosecute violators under criminal statutes, 
but post is not aware of any such cases going to court.  Notably, 
MOLISA and MPS jointly issued an interagency circular (an internal 
GVN regulation) in January 2005 to guide prevention of and combat 
against violations in labor export.  The Circular listed crimes that 
may face administrative sanction or criminal prosecution and clearly 
defined the responsibilities of MPS, MOLISA and police and labor 
agencies at the local level. 
 
HANOI 00000178  008.2 OF 008 
 
 
 
The Prime Minister's Decree 141, issued in November 2005, explicitly 
outlined the responsibilities of both laborers and labor export 
companies.  In addition to identifying the labor export companies' 
responsibilities for Vietnamese laborers abroad (which include 
guaranteeing that overseas employers make good on contracts and 
solving problems in which "laborers have accidents, risk accidents 
or occupational diseases or their dignity or honor is infringed 
upon"), the Decree makes explicit the laborers' legal obligation to 
respect the terms of labor contracts.  The Decree anticipates that 
labor export companies in Vietnam, with the cooperation and 
assistance of the GVN, will be able to resolve disputes between 
laborers and overseas employers.  It does not, however, give 
laborers the right to break a labor contract for any reason. 
 
In July 2007, Vietnam's law "On Vietnamese Labor Working Abroad by 
Contract" took effect and superseded Decree 141.  The law seeks to 
regulate enterprises and protect workers participating in Vietnam's 
growing labor export industry.   The related legal instruments fall 
under this umbrella law and regulate everything from labor 
recruitment and pre-departure fees to contract transparency and 
licensing of labor brokerages. 
 
In 2008, two additional documents were enacted to further implement 
the 2007 export labor law: 1) Circular No. 11 on the management of 
the labor export assistance fund; and, 2) Decision No. 61/2008 on 
the brokerage fees for labor export which provides stricter 
regulations in terms of the fee ceiling in comparison with earlier 
regulations. 
 
While the GVN expects the law to greatly enhance Vietnamese overseas 
worker protections and contract transparency, the settlement of 
contract disputes between workers and the employing company overseas 
or the Vietnamese-based export labor recruiting company is left 
almost entirely to the export labor recruiting company.  Without 
stronger enforcement mechanisms, workers are generally left without 
legal recourse, making them more vulnerable to exploitation and 
trafficking. 
 
MICHALAK