Veitnam, Cambodia vow crackdown on human trafficking problem

November 21, 2004

Ho Chi Minh City — Cambodian and Vietnamese officials on Tuesday agreed that public education campaigns were urgently needed to halt the rising incidence of cross-border trafficking of women and children.

"Many victims do not want to report human trafficking activities to the police because they fear being despised by relatives and neighbours, or they are afraid that someone will take revenge," said Police Colonel Pham Xuan Quac of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security.

Officials agreed that young women and children should be educated about their legal rights and the importance of providing information about illegal activities.

Although the number of arrests has increased in the past few years, human trafficking continues to flourish.

Colonel Kim Pheap, deputy director of Cambodia’s Teenagers Protection and Anti-Human Trafficking Department, said traffickers often employ sophisticated lures to entrap women and children.

"Some trafficking rings disguise themselves as people working in restaurants and karaoke parlours and arrange for young Vietnamese and Cambodian women to marry foreigners," said Kim Pheap, who spoke in HCM City at a meeting co-organised by Viet Nam’s Police Department and their Cambodian counterpart.

"The young women also get promises of jobs with high salaries, but the jobs are actually in the sex trade," Pheap said.

Vietnamese women who live in the provinces of Dong Thap, An Giang, Kien Giang and Tay Ninh, which have common borders with Cambodia, are the most frequent victims.

"About 5,000 Vietnamese women and children are employed as sex workers in Cambodia. Many have been trafficked to brothels in Thailand and Malaysia," Pheap said.

Pheap said he expected the number to decline, but feared that more Cambodian women will be sent to Viet Nam before being transferred to a third country.

Viet Nam co-operates closely with Cambodia in its fight against human trafficking.

Cambodia police this year uncovered 32 cases of human trafficking, setting free 131 victims, 44 of whom were Vietnamese women.

Last year, a joint operation between Viet Nam and Cambodia police cracked a trafficking ring headed by two Vietnamese women who had resided in Cambodia since the 1980s, said Tay Ninh Province police.

In 2000, the two women recruited young girls in Viet Nam by promising them high-paying jobs in cafes.

Three of the girls, all of Tay Ninh Province, were sent to Cambodia’s Kompong Cham Province to work in brothels.

The victims’ families informed Vietnamese police, who then launched an investigation.

Trinh Minh Tan, head of the Investigation and Trial Office of HCM City People’s Procuracy, said that pimping, forced labour, sexual exploitation and forced marriages should all be strictly punished.

He said that far too many unlicensed marriage counseling offices were operating in the country, mostly in big cities.

"Viet Nam needs to strengthen its legal system to protect women and children from trafficking," he said.

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