VZCZCXRO6896
OO RUEHCHI
DE RUEHC #0460/01 1622056
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 112018Z JUN 09
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI IMMEDIATE 9585
INFO RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI IMMEDIATE 1664

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 STATE 060460 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KPAO KWMN PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG TH
SUBJECT: VIETNAM -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE AND 
DEMARCHE 
 
REF: A. (A) STATE 59732 
     ¶B. (B) STATE 005577 
 
¶1. This is an action cable; see paras 5 through 7 and 10. 
 
¶2. On June 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, the Secretary will 
release the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at a 
press conference in the Department's press briefing room. 
This release will receive substantial coverage in domestic 
and foreign news outlets.  Until the time of the Secretary's 
June 16 press conference, any public release of the Report or 
country narratives contained therein is prohibited. 
 
¶3. The Department is hereby providing Post with advance press 
guidance to be used on June 16 or thereafter.  Also provided 
is demarche language to be used in informing the Government 
of Vietnam of its tier ranking and the TIP Report's imminent 
release.  The text of the TIP Report country narrative is 
provided, both for use in informing the Government of Vietnam 
and in any local media release by Post's public affairs 
section on June 16 or thereafter.  Drawing on information 
provided below in paras 8 and 9, Post may provide the host 
government with the text of the TIP Report narrative no 
earlier than 1200 noon local time Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, 
EUR, and NEA countries and OOB local time Tuesday June 16 for 
SCA and EAP posts.  Please note, however, that any public 
release of the Report's information should not/not precede 
the Secretary's release at 10:00 am EDT on June 16. 
 
¶4. The entire TIP Report will be available on-line at 
www.state.gov/g/tip shortly after the Secretary's June 16 
release.  Hard copies of the Report will be pouched to posts 
in all countries appearing on the Report.  The Secretary's 
statement at the June 16 press event, and the statement of 
and fielding of media questions by G/TIP,s Director and 
Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador-at-Large Luis 
CdeBaca, will be available on the Department's website 
shortly after the June 16 event.  Ambassador de Baca will 
also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign 
embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
¶5. Action Request: No earlier than 12 noon local time on 
Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA posts and OOB local 
time on Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts, please inform 
the appropriate official in the Government of Vietnam of the 
June 16 release of the 2009 TIP Report, drawing on the points 
in para 9 (at Post's discretion) and including the text of 
the country narrative provided in para 8.  For countries 
where the State Department has lowered the tier ranking, it 
is particularly important to advise governments prior to the 
Report being released in Washington on June 16. 
 
¶6. Action Request continued:  Please note that, for those 
countries which will not receive an "action plan" with 
specific recommendations for improvement, posts should draw 
host governments' attention to the areas for improvement 
identified in the 2009 Report, especially highlighted in the 
"Recommendations" section of the second paragraph of the 
narrative text.  This engagement is important to establishing 
the framework in which the government's performance will be 
judged for the 2010 Report.  If posts have questions about 
which governments will receive an action plan, or how they 
may follow up on the recommendations in the 2009 Report, 
please contact G/TIP and the appropriate regional bureau. 
 
¶7. Action Request continued: On June 16, please be prepared 
to answer media inquiries on the Report's release using the 
press guidance provided in para 11.  If Post wishes, a local 
press statement may be released on or after 10:30 am EDT June 
16, drawing on the press guidance and the text of the TIP 
Report's country narrative provided in para 8. 
 
¶8. Begin Final Text of Vietnam,s country narrative in the 
2009 TIP Report: 
 
-------------------------------- 
VIETNAM (TIER 2) 
-------------------------------- 
Vietnam is a source and destination country for men, women, 
and children trafficked for forced labor and commercial 
sexual exploitation.  Women and children are trafficked to 
the People,s Republic of China (PRC), Cambodia, Thailand, 
the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Macau 
for sexual exploitation.  Vietnam is a source country for men 
and women who migrate for work through informal networks and 
through state-owned and private labor export companies in the 
construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, 
 
STATE 00060460  002 OF 006 
 
 
Taiwan, South Korea, the PRC, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, 
Western Europe, and the Middle East, but subsequently face 
conditions of forced labor or debt bondage.  Labor export 
companies may charge workers as much as $10,000 for the 
opportunity to work abroad, making them highly vulnerable to 
debt bondage.  There are reports of Vietnamese children 
trafficked to the UK by Vietnamese organized crime gangs for 
forced labor on cannabis farms, and Vietnamese boys 
trafficked to China for forced labor in agriculture and 
factory settings.  Traffickers are often residents or former 
residents of the victims, communities.  Some Vietnamese 
women going to the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and 
increasingly to the Republic of Korea for arranged marriages 
were victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual 
exploitation or forced labor.  There were reports of women 
from Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta forced into 
prostitution after marrying overseas, as well as reports of 
ethnic Hmong girls and women lured to or abducted and 
transported to southern China and subsequently sold into 
marriage.  Vietnam is a destination country for Cambodian 
children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or 
commercial sexual exploitation.  Vietnamese and Cambodian 
children from rural areas are trafficked to Ho Chi Minh City 
and Hanoi for forced begging or the selling of flowers and 
lottery tickets, often part of organized crime rings. 
Vietnam has a significant internal trafficking problem with 
women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban 
centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. 
Vietnam is increasingly a destination for child sex tourism, 
with perpetrators from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the PRC, 
Taiwan, the UK, Australia, Europe, and the United States. 
 
The Government of Vietnam does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; 
however, it is making significant efforts to do so.  While 
the government continued to prosecute sex trafficking 
offenders and made some efforts to protect victims of 
trafficking, it did not make sufficient efforts to criminally 
prosecute offenders of labor trafficking, or to protect 
victims of labor trafficking.  While recent laws provide some 
recourse to victims of labor trafficking, bureaucratic 
inertia and a lack of resources for victims make this 
recourse difficult for trafficking victims to pursue. 
Although it took steps to combat cross-border sex trafficking 
by expanding investigations and prosecutions of traffickers, 
the Vietnamese government has not yet focused adequately on 
internal trafficking and needs to make more progress in the 
areas of law enforcement, victim protection, and prevention 
of labor trafficking and internal trafficking.  The 
government,s initiatives to increase labor exports have not 
been complemented by adequate efforts to prevent labor 
trafficking and protect workers going abroad. 
 
Recommendations for Vietnam: Institute criminal penalties for 
recruitment agencies and others involved in labor 
trafficking; criminally prosecute those involved in 
fraudulent labor recruitment or exploitation of labor; take 
steps to protect Vietnamese migrant workers from being 
subjected to practices that contribute to forced labor, such 
as the withholding of travel documents; ensure that 
state-licensed recruitment agencies do not engage in fraud or 
charge illegal &commissions8 for overseas employment; 
extend proactive procedures to identify victims of internal 
trafficking and labor trafficking among vulnerable groups, 
such as repatriated Vietnamese migrant laborers; take 
measures to ensure that victims of labor trafficking are not 
threatened or otherwise punished for protesting or leaving an 
exploitative labor situation in Vietnam or abroad; assist 
Vietnamese workers returning from abroad in the resolution of 
labor contract disputes; and implement and support a visible 
anti-trafficking awareness campaign directed as clients of 
the sex trade. 
 
Prosecution 
----------- 
The Vietnamese government demonstrated increased law 
enforcement efforts to combat trafficking in persons for 
transnational sex trafficking, though it did not take 
adequate steps to combat labor trafficking.  While statutes 
in the Penal Code prohibit trafficking, existing laws do not 
adequately cover all forms of trafficking, including labor 
trafficking and the recruiting and harboring of trafficking 
victims.  The majority of traffickers are prosecuted under 
Articles 119 and 120 of the Penal Code, which can be used 
against some forms of trafficking for sexual and labor 
exploitation, but can also be used to prosecute a variety of 
related crimes.  In October 2008, the government submitted 
proposed amendments to Articles 119 and 120 of the Penal Code 
to include the trafficking of men over the age of 16.  Labor 
laws do not provide criminal penalties for labor trafficking. 
 Contract disputes between workers and the Vietnam-based 
export labor recruiting company or the employing company 
 
STATE 00060460  003 OF 006 
 
 
overseas are left almost entirely to the export labor 
recruiting company.  Workers must bring their cases to court 
if they feel they have been unjustly treated by the export 
labor recruiting company, though in practice, few have the 
resources to do so.  Despite several reported cases of forced 
labor and debt bondage of Vietnamese workers abroad, the 
government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, 
or convictions of offenders of labor trafficking during the 
reporting period.  The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and 
Social Affairs (MOLISA) reported that while some labor 
recruitment companies were fined or had activities restricted 
due to various violations, none had their licenses revoked 
for violations of the law.  Vietnam,s National Steering 
Committee on trafficking in persons reported that in 2008, 
police investigated 330 cases and convicted 424 individuals 
for violations of Articles 119 and 120 of the Vietnamese 
Penal Code, which includes some forms of trafficking for 
sexual and labor exploitation, as well as a variety of 
related crimes.  Trafficking-related corruption occurred at 
the local level, where officials at border crossings and 
checkpoints take bribes to look the other way, though the 
government did not report any investigations or prosecutions 
of officials for trafficking-related complicity. 
 
Protection 
----------- 
The Vietnamese government demonstrated some efforts at 
protecting cross-border sex trafficking victims in 2008. 
While the government took action to further protect workers 
by implementing the labor export assistance fund and 
providing stricter regulations on brokerage fees for labor 
export it does not provide adequate legal protection or 
assistance to the estimated 500,000 Vietnamese workers abroad 
from conditions of forced labor and debt bondage.  Agreements 
signed with governments of labor-demand countries did not 
appear to have adequate provisions to prevent human 
trafficking and protect victims of trafficking from 
conditions of forced labor and debt bondage.  Although the 
government says the practice of passport confiscation is 
unacceptable, MOLISA authorized recruitment companies to 
illegally withhold workers, travel documents during the 
reporting period; Vietnamese embassies abroad reportedly do 
issue travel documents when employers refuse to return them. 
The Vietnam Women,s Union (VWU), with the assistance of 
NGOs, continued to run four shelters which provide 
psycho-social counseling and vocational training for female 
victims of sex trafficking.  There are no shelters designated 
specifically for victims of labor trafficking; however, these 
victims have access to the same &social protection centers8 
that many female sex trafficking victims can turn to for 
assistance.  Sex trafficking victims were encouraged to 
assist in the investigation and prosecution process, but 
there was no data on the number of victims involved in 
prosecutions during the reporting period.  Repatriated 
Vietnamese trafficking victims were not penalized for 
unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being 
trafficked.  In March 2009, Vietnamese officials repatriated 
a Vietnamese minor identified in Laos as a sex trafficking 
victim before she could access necessary medical treatment in 
Laos.  The government established some procedures to identify 
cross-border sex trafficking victims and trained 150 
officials on the procedures with assistance from an 
international organization, but has not yet developed a 
comprehensive system to identify victims of internal 
trafficking or labor trafficking from among vulnerable 
groups.  Since May 2008, the government reported that it 
officially identified 410 victims, compared to 450 for all of 
¶2007.  In May 2008, the government, with NGO assistance, 
established procedures for referring victims to appropriate 
care, and began to implement the referral system for women 
and girls identified as trafficking victims.  The government 
does not exhibit adequate efforts to identify trafficking 
victims among women arrested for prostitution; as a result, 
sex trafficking victims may be vulnerable to being penalized 
for acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. 
 
In February 2008, a group of 176 Vietnamese women recruited 
by Vietnamese state-owned labor agencies for work in Jordan 
were allegedly subjected to conditions of fraudulent 
recruitment, contract switching, debt bondage, unlawful 
confiscation of travel documents, confinement, and 
manipulation of employment terms ) all indications of 
possible trafficking for forced labor. These conditions led 
to a worker strike and subsequently, altercations among 
workers and with the Jordanian police.  The Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs sent an inter-ministerial team to Jordan to 
address the situation and attempt to convince the workers to 
go back to work. Several workers reported that officials 
attempted to intimidate them and refused workers, requests 
to intervene to get their back pay and pressure the employer 
to honor their contracts.  Some reports stated that the 
workers faced threats of retaliation by Vietnamese government 
 
STATE 00060460  004 OF 006 
 
 
officials and employment agency representatives if they did 
not return to work.  After labor negotiations failed, the 
Vietnamese government repatriated 157 of the workers; the 
other 19 workers elected to stay in Jordan.  Although the 
government fined the three state-owned labor companies 
involved and restricted them from sending workers to Jordan 
in the future, it did not criminally prosecute labor agency 
officials for trafficking-related offenses.  The government 
does not consider the workers possible victims of trafficking 
and has not assisted the repatriated workers in retrieving 
their back pay or recruitment fees.  In another reported case 
of labor trafficking, four Vietnamese women were recruited by 
a state-owned recruitment company to work as domestic workers 
in Malaysia.  The workers report that their passports and 
contracts were confiscated upon arrival, and the women were 
imprisoned in their employers, home where they were forced 
to work 18 hours a day with no pay.  The women were able to 
escape and return to Vietnam, but the government reportedly 
did not assist the victims in obtaining compensation for 
their unpaid work in Malaysia and the high recruitment fees 
they reportedly paid. 
 
Prevention 
----------- 
The Vietnamese government continued efforts to prevent 
trafficking through public awareness.  The VWU and the 
Vietnam Youth Union continued to conduct nationwide 
anti-trafficking public awareness campaigns.  The VWU also 
continued to cooperate with its South Korean counterpart in a 
program of pre-marriage counseling centers in Vietnam, in an 
effort to prevent trafficking through international marriages 
of Vietnamese women.  In March 2008, the Vietnamese 
government signed an anti-trafficking Memorandum of 
Understanding with the Government of Thailand, though some 
NGOs question the feasibility of the agreement,s 
implementation.  Despite Vietnam,s efforts to engage in 
dialogue and enhance law enforcement cooperation with 
Malaysia and other Asian destination countries for Vietnamese 
trafficking victims, regional cooperation remains a 
challenge.  The government recognizes that Vietnam is 
becoming an increasingly attractive destination for 
international child sex tourism.  Vietnam works with foreign 
governments where foreign pedophiles are wanted for child sex 
tourism, though it declined to share information on cases 
handled.  There were no measures undertaken by the government 
to reduce demand for commercial sex acts.  In April 2008, the 
Vietnamese government completed an investigation of a series 
of export labor-related fraud cases, 80 percent of which 
involved Vietnamese laborers recruited by unlicensed brokers 
to go to the Republic of Korea.  Reports indicate that over 
100 perpetrators were convicted for at least 70 cases of 
fraud involving 3,000 victims of fraud in the 2006-2007 
timeframe.  Vietnam has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. 
 
¶9. Post may wish to deliver the following points, which offer 
technical and legal background on the TIP Report process, to 
the host government as a non-paper with the above TIP Report 
country narrative: 
 
(begin non-paper) 
 
-- The U.S. Congress, through its passage of the 2000 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as amended (TVPA), 
requires the Secretary of State to submit an annual Report to 
Congress.  The goal of this Report is to stimulate action and 
create partnerships around the world in the fight against 
modern-day slavery.  The USG approach to combating human 
trafficking follows the TVPA and the standards set forth in 
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in 
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the 
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized 
Crime (commonly known as the "Palermo Protocol").  The TVPA 
and the Palermo Protocol recognize that this is a crime in 
which the victims, labor or services (including in the "sex 
industry") are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, 
or coercion, whether overt or through psychological 
manipulation.  While much attention has focused on 
international flows, both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol 
focus on the exploitation of the victim, and do not require a 
showing that the victim was moved. 
 
-- Recent amendments to the TVPA removed the requirement that 
only countries with a "significant number" of trafficking 
victims be included in the Report. Beginning with the 2009 
TIP Report, countries determined to be a country of origin, 
transit, or destination for victims of severe forms of 
trafficking are included in the Report and assigned to one of 
three tiers.  Countries assessed as meeting the "minimum 
standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking" 
set forth in the TVPA are classified as Tier 1.  Countries 
assessed as not fully complying with the minimum standards, 
but making significant efforts to meet those minimum 
 
STATE 00060460  005 OF 006 
 
 
standards are classified as Tier 2.  Countries assessed as 
neither complying with the minimum standards nor making 
significant efforts to do so are classified as Tier 3. 
 
-- The TVPA also requires the Secretary of State to provide a 
"Special Watch List" to Congress later in the year. 
Anti-trafficking efforts of the countries on this list are to 
be evaluated again in an Interim Assessment that the 
Secretary of State must provide to Congress by February 1 of 
each year.  Countries are included on the "Special Watch 
List" if they move up in "tier" rankings in the annual TIP 
Report -- from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 ) or if they have been 
placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. 
 
-- Tier 2 Watch List consists of Tier 2 countries determined: 
(1) not to have made "increasing efforts" to combat human 
trafficking over the past year; (2) to be making significant 
efforts based on commitments of anti-trafficking reforms over 
the next year, or (3) to have a very significant number of 
trafficking victims or a significantly increasing victim 
population.  As indicated in reftel B, the TVPRA of 2008 
contains a provision requiring that a country that has been 
included on Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years after 
the date of enactment of the TVPRA of 2008 be ranked as Tier 
¶3.  Thus, any automatic downgrade to Tier 3 pursuant to this 
provision would take place, at the earliest, in the 2011 TIP 
Report (i.e., a country would have to be ranked Tier 2 Watch 
List in the 2009 and 2010 Reports before being subject to 
Tier 3 in the 2011 Report).  The new law allows for a waiver 
of this provision for up to two additional years upon a 
determination by the President that the country has developed 
and devoted sufficient resources to a written plan to make 
significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the 
minimum standards. 
 
-- Countries classified as Tier 3 may be subject to statutory 
restrictions for the subsequent fiscal year on 
non-humanitarian and non-trade-related foreign assistance 
and, in some circumstances, withholding of funding for 
participation by government officials or employees in 
educational and cultural exchange programs.   In addition, 
the President could instruct the U.S. executive directors to 
international financial institutions to oppose loans or other 
utilization of funds (other than for humanitarian, 
trade-related or certain types of development assistance) 
with respect to countries on Tier 3.  Countries classified as 
Tier 3 that take strong action within 90 days of the Report's 
release to show significant efforts against trafficking in 
persons, and thereby warrant a reassessment of their Tier 
classification, would avoid such sanctions.  Guidelines for 
such actions are in the DOS-crafted action plans to be shared 
by Posts with host governments. 
 
-- The 2009 TIP Report, issuing as it does in the midst of 
the global financial crisis, highlights high levels of 
trafficking for forced labor in many parts of the world and 
systemic contributing factors to this phenomenon:  fraudulent 
recruitment practices and excessive recruiting fees in 
workers, home countries; the lack of adequate labor 
protections in both sending and receiving countries; and the 
flawed design of some destination countries, "sponsorship 
systems" that do not give foreign workers adequate legal 
recourse when faced with conditions of forced labor.  As the 
May 2009 ILO Global Report on Forced Labor concluded, forced 
labor victims suffer approximately $20 billion in losses, and 
traffickers, profits are estimated at $31 billion.  The 
current global financial crisis threatens to increase the 
number of victims of forced labor and increase the associated 
"cost of coercion." 
 
-- The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on 
website www.state.gov/g/tip. 
 
-- On June 16, 2009, the Secretary of State will release the 
ninth annual TIP Report in a public event at the State 
Department.  We are providing you an advance copy of your 
country's narrative in that report.  Please keep this 
information embargoed until 10:00 am Washington DC time June 
¶16.  The State Department will also hold a general briefing 
for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 
17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
(end non-paper) 
 
¶10. Posts should make sure that the relevant country 
narrative is readily available on or though the Mission's web 
page in English and appropriate local language(s) as soon as 
possible after the TIP Report is released.  Funding for 
translation costs will be handled as it was for the Human 
Rights Report.  Posts needing financial assistance for 
translation costs should contact their regional bureau,s EX 
office. 
 
STATE 00060460  006 OF 006 
 
 
¶11. The following is press guidance provided for Post to use 
with local media. 
 
Q1: Why was Vietnam again given a ranking of Tier 2? 
 
A: The Government of Vietnam does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; 
however, it is making significant efforts to do so.  While 
the government continued to prosecute sex trafficking 
offenders and made some efforts to protect victims of 
trafficking, it did not make sufficient efforts to criminally 
prosecute offenders of labor trafficking, or to protect 
victims of labor trafficking.  While recent laws provide some 
recourse to victims of labor trafficking, bureaucratic 
inertia and a lack of resources for victims make this 
recourse difficult for trafficking victims to pursue. 
Although it took steps to combat cross-border sex trafficking 
by expanding investigations and prosecutions of traffickers, 
the Vietnamese government has not yet focused adequately on 
internal trafficking and needs to make more progress in the 
areas of law enforcement, victim protection, and prevention 
of labor trafficking and internal trafficking.  The 
government,s initiatives to increase labor exports have not 
been complemented by adequate efforts to prevent labor 
trafficking and protect workers going abroad. 
 
Q2: What progress has Vietnam made in the past year? 
 
A: The Vietnam Women,s Union (VWU), with the assistance of 
NGOs, continued to run four shelters which provide 
psycho-social counseling and vocational training for female 
victims of sex trafficking.  The government established some 
procedures to identify cross-border sex trafficking victims 
and trained 150 officials on the procedures with assistance 
from an international organization.  Since May 2008, the 
government reported that it officially identified 410 
victims, compared to 450 for all of 2007.  The VWU and the 
Vietnam Youth Union continued to conduct nationwide 
anti-trafficking public awareness campaigns. 
 
Q3: What efforts could Vietnam make to improve its fight 
against trafficking in persons? 
 
A:  The Vietnamese government could:  institute criminal 
penalties for recruitment agencies and others involved in 
labor trafficking; criminally prosecute those involved in 
fraudulent labor recruitment or exploitation of labor; take 
steps to protect Vietnamese migrant workers from being 
subjected to practices that contribute to forced labor, such 
as the withholding of travel documents; ensure that 
state-licensed recruitment agencies do not engage in fraud or 
charge illegal &commissions8 for overseas employment; 
extend proactive procedures to identify victims of internal 
trafficking and labor trafficking among vulnerable groups, 
such as repatriated Vietnamese migrant laborers; take 
measures to ensure that victims of labor trafficking are not 
threatened or otherwise punished for protesting or leaving an 
exploitative labor situation in Vietnam or abroad; assist 
Vietnamese workers returning from abroad in the resolution of 
labor contract disputes; and implement and support a visible 
anti-trafficking awareness campaign directed as clients of 
the sex trade. 
 
¶12. The Department appreciates posts, assistance with the 
preceding action requests. 
CLINTON