U.S. State Dept Says Vietnam’s Anti-Human Trafficking Efforts Still Lacking

by VP, June 29, 2017

Although Vietnam’s government has made great efforts in its fight against human trafficking, it still failed to meet the minimum standards in several key areas, the VOA news outlet reported on June 29, citing the Trafficking in Persons Report 2017 recently released by the U.S. Department of State.

Given this assessment, Vietnam remained on Tier 2 in the classification of human trafficking elimination in 2016.

During the year, the country reported identifying 1,128 victims—an increase from 1,000 in 2015 and 1,031 in 2014—but did not provide statistics disaggregating identified cases by type of trafficking, victim age or gender, source, or destination.

Informally, officials from the Ministry of Public Security estimated 85% of identified cases involved transnational trafficking. Last year, the government reported assisting about 600 victims, a slight decrease from 650 in 2015 and 668 in 2014.

According to the report, the Vietnamese government has demonstrated increasing efforts to identify more victims; expand anti-trafficking training for law enforcement, local government officials and members of vulnerable communities and issue guidelines to relevant ministries and provincial authorities on the national anti-trafficking action plan.

However, anti-trafficking efforts were implemented by a lack of interagency coordination among provincial officials with anti-trafficking legislation and victim identification procedures.

Additionally, the implementation of the amended 2015 Penal Code, including new anti-trafficking articles, continued to be delayed, leaving deficiencies in the law that hindered interagency coordination and law enforcement efforts.

Victim protection services remained under-resourced and poorly integrated into referral mechanisms; authorities did not actively screen for trafficking among vulnerable groups or systematically refer victims to care.

The report also gave some recommendations on anti-human trafficking for Vietnam, including:

(1) Fully enact and implement articles 150 and 151 of the new Penal Code; vigorously prosecute all forms of trafficking and convict and punish traffickers;

(2) Finalize and conduct the national victim survey in order to improve victim referral mechanisms and services;

(3) Improve interagency cooperation to effectively implement the anti-trafficking national plan of action;

(4) Develop programs that reduce stigma and promote reintegration of trafficking returnees;

(5) Fully implement the ASEAN Convention against Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.