But mostly, the "Tale of Kieu" is relevant to contemporary Vietnam because, two
centuries after it was penned, it still tells the story of the Vietnamese
people. In order to save their families from destitution, Kieu's contemporaries
sell themselves en masse - except now they are doing so on the global stage.
In December, while in Ho Chi Minh City, better known as Saigon, I asked a group
of well-educated young women for their thoughts on Vietnamese women sold as
concubines abroad. Their answers were surprisingly complacent and tempered.
"Not everyone is going to end up as a prostitute or badly treated by her
husband," said Tuyen Nguyen, a 19-year-old who is attending college and
planning to be a doctor. "I know this one girl who came back wealthy. It's
true, she's one of the lucky ones, but still, it's a better chance than staying
home."
"Still, if your parents and siblings are starving, you've got to do something,"
said Thuy Le, who is in her mid-20s. "It's the right thing to do."
"It's the girl in the countryside who would do this kind of thing," said
another woman, a publicist for a cosmetics company. "No one in the city would
go. I mean, it's hard work in the rice field. Besides, who is to say their
Vietnamese husbands won't beat them just like their Korean or Taiwanese one?"
Her friends murmured in agreement.
Unfortunately, these Vietnamese brides don't end up in real marriages even if
their paperwork says so. According to Huy Phan, who is part of a group of
Vietnamese Americans trying to help victims of trafficking in Taiwan, "the
scheme is the brothel or mafia finances a man to go to Vietnam to buy a wife.
But the marriage is a ruse, and the girl ends up as a prostitute or indentured
servant when she gets to Taiwan. It's a way to legalize trafficking."
How big is the problem?
In March 2004, a Taiwanese man tried to sell three Vietnamese women on eBay
with a starting bid of $5,400. After Vietnamese living abroad protested, eBay
quickly pulled the auction page. The language on that page, along with the
images of the three hapless young women smiling to the camera, bespoke of
modern-day slavery: "Products will be delivered only to Taiwan," the page said.
Since the Cold War ended, Vietnamese women and children have been steadily
trafficked abroad. They are smuggled to Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Macau,
Malaysia, Taiwan, the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, the United States
for commercial sexual exploitation.
According to UNICEF, at least 60,000 women were trafficked across China from
Vietnam into the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region between 1998 and 2001. That
traffic has increased since then. The Vietnamese Ministry of Justice,
meanwhile, estimates that about 100,000 Vietnamese women and children have been
trafficked to Cambodia for sexual exploitation.
The hottest spot since 1999, when Vietnam and Taiwan signed a labor agreement
that increased the flow of all sorts of workers, has been Taiwan. According to
the Rev. Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese Australian priest working in Taiwan to
provide shelter and legal help to dozens of overseas female workers from
Vietnam, "Many have been victims of rape and sexual assaults by their employers
or tricked into prostitution and managed to escape from the brothels.
"The problem is getting worse. It's an epidemic."
In June, the US State Department released "Victims of Trafficking and Violence
Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report." Vietnam was classified
as a Tier 2 country, meaning that its government makes some effort to eliminate
the problem but "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the
elimination of trafficking."
Nguyen said that the only reason Vietnam was not classified as Tier 3 - a
country that does nothing about human trafficking - is that "Vietnam promised
that it will do better. But there's no evidence that it has. If anything, the
Vietnamese government makes money from sending Vietnamese abroad, and some
officials are in cahoots with foreign employers."
It should be noted that women who escape brothels and abusive employers in
Taiwan no longer seek the aid of their Vietnamese representatives in Taipei
because they are afraid of being returned to their abusers. Instead they run to
Nguyen's legal aid organization, Vietnamese Migrant Workers Office, for
shelter.
A typical trafficking scenario in Saigon goes something like this: A group of
men from a foreign country such as Taiwan or Korea, perhaps, are chauffeured to
a designated bar where young women and teenage girls are lined up. The men
choose their brides, paying $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the quality of the
bride - mostly whether she is a virgin.
Soon these so-called brides are taken out of the country, and their families in
the rural areas receive around $500 for the sale. The rest goes to pay
middlemen and to grease the legal machine.
Girls and women may also be promised jobs in Cambodia, Laos or China, only to
end up as sex slaves once they cross the border. Recent raids in Cambodian
brothels discovered Vietnamese girls as young as 5 years old. Young boys, too,
are bought. They are highly prized in China, especially for families that have
no children and want to adopt.
Many problems help perpetuate this form of exploitation. First are rising
population pressures. There are 82 million people in Vietnam. Two out of 3
Vietnamese are younger than 35, and there are an estimated 1.5 million
abortions each year. The rural-urban gap is widening. Peasants trying to
survive become easy prey.
There is also corruption. Government officials can be bribed to look the other
way or, worse, actively assist the sale of these women by stamping their exit
visas.
Third, and most important, Vietnamese people themselves have developed a
lackadaisical attitude about the plight of trafficked women. After all, when
approximately half a million prostitutes in Vietnam are trying to make ends
meet, who cares if a few hundred thousand more are plying their trade abroad?
In Vietnam, self-sacrifice is still perceived as the highest Confucian virtue,
but it's seldom noted that consigning one's own offspring to a life of slavery
is highly un-Confucian.
Kathleen Bui, who runs Little Saigon Radio in Orange County, recently visited
young Vietnamese women who had been victimized in Taiwan. "Many come over as
maids, others as laborers, and many had to pay for their own way to get there,"
she said. "When they get there, their papers are taken away. They are forced to
have sex. If they refuse, they are beaten and tortured."
Some are maimed, and others are blinded, she said. One became front-page news
in Taiwan when she was beaten to near death and thrown into a garbage dump by
her husband. Many have been gang-raped.
In the 21st century, Vietnamese still memorize the epic "Tale of Kieu," but
compared with many who continue to disappear abroad, Kieu is luckier by far.
She at least was liberated from her bondage and reunited with her family after
years of separation.
Andrew Lam is an editor at Pacific News Service and author of "Perfume
Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora." Contact us at
insight@sfchronicle.com.
