Vietnam: Human trafficking on the rise amid COVID
Deutsche
Welle | 2021-06-11
Rights
groups have warned about increasing human trafficking as the pandemic pushes
many vulnerable individuals to the brink. They say that despite closed borders,
people are crossing illegally into China and Myanmar.
A surge in
COVID-19 cases in Vietnam has prompted a spike in human trafficking and
smuggling as people become more financially desperate, rights organizations have
warned.
Despite
Vietnam's closed borders amid the pandemic, traffickers and smugglers have found
new ways to transport people not only within the country but also across
borders, they added.
Michael
Brosowski, co-founder of the Hanoi-based Blue Dragon Foundation, a child rescue
organization, said most trafficking cases he has been handling involve girls and
women from ethnic minorities.
Clusters of
COVID-19 infections have flared in the industrial northern province of Bac Giang.
Brosowski
said there have been reports of teenage girls being trafficked into karaoke
bars, which are allegedly fronts for brothels.
"The karaoke
bars are serving workers in those industrial zones and that's also where
COVID-19 has taken off, so I think there is a link between the two crises and
this shows the need for better regulation of major industrial sites like these,"
Brosowski told DW.
China and
Myanmar trafficking routes
Brosowski
said that even though Vietnam's borders have been shut, trafficking and
smuggling still occurs into neighboring China.
In the past
year, over 70 people have been rescued by Blue Dragon from within China. The
organization marked its 1,000th rescue in January. Chinese and Vietnamese
authorities have been cooperating to rescue and return trafficking survivors to
their hometowns.
According to
local Vietnamese media reports, pregnant women under economic hardship have
crossed illegally into China with the help of smuggling networks. Their babies
are then sold.
Brosowski
said that as China has increased its community surveillance systems in recent
years, authorities have found people who were trafficked between 10 and 30 years
ago.
"We dealt
with a situation recently where someone had been trafficked 20 years ago and who
was probably a teenager at the time, and in those cases, that survivor is going
to require pretty intensive care for a long time," said Brosowski, adding that
girls and women from Vietnam continue to be trafficked into China as
would-be-brides.
According to
Brosowski, the military takeover in Myanmar has made the Southeast Asian country
a hot spot for traffickers under the presumed lack of law enforcement.
"Traffickers
are directly exploiting the chaos of the military takeover, so that is a new
development we are dealing with."
Preventing
human trafficking
Diane Truong
is the director of communications at Pacific Links Foundation, a
counter-trafficking organization that also deals with reintegrating and
empowering survivors.
"We are very
much centered on women and youth empowerment and we view trafficking as a
development issue," Truong, who is based in California, told DW.
Truong said
Vietnam's most vulnerable communities are vital to preventing trafficking. The
foundation provides online English lessons, summer camps and scholarships for
disadvantaged youth from poor communities.
"We conduct
training with schools, factory workers and their managers, and we also have an
app that we have launched specifically focused on migrant workers which helps
them to make better life decisions," said Truong.
Europe's
Vietnamese smuggling networks
Truong said
the foundation is also dealing with Vietnamese being trafficked or smuggled
throughout Europe.
The German
capital Berlin has been an important center for the human trafficking and
smuggling network.
In March
last year, German police carried out a series of raids across the country in a
crackdown against a gang of suspected Vietnamese smugglers.
During the
crackdown, police issued 13 arrest warrants and took six suspects into custody.
They are wanted on charges relating to the smuggling of at least 155 Vietnamese
people to Germany dating back to 2018.
The people
were flown first from Vietnam to Eastern Europe. From there they were
transported via different routes to Berlin as well as across Germany and to
other countries, including France, Belgium and the UK.
The people
smugglers are thought to have received between $5,000 (€4,496) and $20,000
(€17,985) for each smuggling operation. The smugglers kept people in a network
of safe houses until they had paid the price for the flight and visa.
"Of course,
the other thing that we've been working on is our capacity building training in
Europe, so doing training for frontline responders, including law enforcement
and social workers, and collaborating in supporting potential victims," Truong
said.
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