2009 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT - VIETNAM - PART 1 of

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

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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,

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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

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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

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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.


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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.

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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

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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.

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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