Protecting Young People from Human Trafficking

Written by Le Thi Binh, Bui Thi Viet Ha, Tran Van Thanh - ADP staff and voluteer.
 
“I didn’t know if I was a human trafficking victim or not, even though I’d heard about it,” said Mr Doan Manh Hoach, 45, from the northern province of Yen Bai.

“When I was a young man, I was offered the opportunity to work in a gold mine and I went,” continued Mr Hoach. “I worked there for four months until the police arrived and freed me. While at the mine, I was hit, left hungry and never paid any money!” he added. “But I still wasn’t sure if I’d been trafficked or not.”

Like Mr Hoach, many young people in poor regions of Vietnam have little knowledge of the existence of human trafficking, putting them at risk. The traffickers target those living in remote rural areas, enticing them to move with offers of good jobs in the nation’s cities or even abroad. To the traffickers, of course, they are simply lucrative prey.

Between 2005 and 2012, the Vietnamese police discovered more than 3,000 cases of human trafficking, according to official statistics. As many as 6,500 victims were sold and 5,050 traffickers were investigated. Most of the victims were young men, women and children living in poverty in the mountainous countryside with limited access to education.
 
World Vision is fighting human trafficking through its End Trafficking in Persons (ETIP) project in Vietnam. As part of the ETIP programme, a series of events were organised in February to coincide with the Lunar New Year holiday – a time when many young people who moved away for work returned home.
 
More than 1,000 people attended the awareness promotion events, held in Tran Yen and Huong Hoa districts in Quang Tri province and Nong Son district in Quang Nam province. By means of communication sessions, talk shows and gala nights, the attendees leaned about how to prevent human trafficking, travel safely and protect themselves, as well as whom to contact in case of emergency.
 
“I learned about the ways in which human traffickers trick people and the dangers of falling prey to them,” said Ho Thi Thia, a 21-year-old from Huong Hoa district who attended her local ETIP event. Thia belongs to the Van Kieu ethnic minority and works for a clothing company in Ho Chi Minh City. “I now know how to avoid traffickers when I travel a long way,” she said.
 
Also belonging to the Van Kieu minority, Ho Huu Huong, 23, said, “I used to think I’d be alright and that trafficking was something that happened to other people.” Huong, who works in Laos planting banana trees, added that he now understood that he was at risk of trafficking too. “I’m going to tell my friends and relatives in my village about trafficking and how to travel safely,” he concluded.
In Nong Son, teachers and students at junior secondary schools sang, read poems and performed plays to deliver messages about human trafficking to their fellow villagers.

“Some of my old pupils called me after they got back to Ho Chi Minh City, where they work, and said they’d learned a lot at the World Vision event,” commented Mr Ho Van Nhan, a teacher in Nong Son. “They said thanks for being taught about human trafficking and how they might fall prey to it,” he said. “They promised to pass on what they learned to their friends who weren’t at the event.”

Mr. Hoach, who is now a village official, is fully aware that he was subject to human trafficking after participating in the ETIP activities held in Tran Yen district. “Regular events on human trafficking will teach all villagers, especially the young, about the issue and how to avoid it when working in other places,” he said.

The success of the human trafficking events has prompted World Vision to cooperate with local authorities to organise similar events on topics such as labour laws and life skills under the ETIP umbrella. Alongside this, we will work with other non-governmental organisations to find internship and employment opportunities for young people in difficult circumstances.

The five-year ETIP programme is divided into three ‘pillar’ projects: Prevention, Victim Protection, and Policy Advocacy. World Vision conducts its ETIP activities in an area classified as the ‘Greater Mekong Sub-Region’, which encompasses Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Within Vietnam, the ETIP project works in the provinces of Quang Tri, Quang Nam and Yen Bai.