VIETNAM FACTS ON PROSTITUTION

Thousands of Vietnamese women are trafficked through the Vietnam-China border by illegal organizers who take them to Cambodia and from there to neighboring countries for prostitution purposes. Vietnamese pimps pretend to court village girls to bring them to the city, and then sell them to brothels. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Vietnamese traffickers sell hundreds of women and children each year in Europe, China, Cambodia and Macau, for prostitution and arranged marriages. ("EU wants more cooperation with Vietnam to end trafficking women, drugs," AFP, 27 February 1998)........

Prostituted girls, most of them aged 15 to18 years of age, are found in the Svay Pak red-light district of Cambodia. Many girls are much younger. Most of them are smuggled in from Vietnam and all are bound by contracts, which last from six months to over a year. Svay Pak has the largest number of prostituted Vietnamese girls. ("The Street of Little Flowers," rewritten from 'Children of the Dust,' by MIKEL FLAMM and NGO KIM CUC, Bangkok Post, 23 February 1997)

Traffickers have admitted to selling women and children for US$250-300 each. (Border Guard Leiutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hoa, "Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising," Associated Press, 24 April 1998)

Most women and children trafficked from Vietnam are taken to China and Cambodia, Victims are kidnapped for brothels by deceptive job offers or tourist trips, matchmaking with foreigners who often sell and resell the women abroad. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Marriages entered into by Vietnamese women with Taiwanese, Europeans, Americans and Thais have ended in, the woman being sold and resold in brothels by her "husband" upon arrival to the "husband's" nation. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Between September 1995 and March 1997, Vietnamese border guard forces uncovered 121 child trade cases, arresting 186 traffickers and freeing 281 victims including 31 under age 16. (Border Guard Leiutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hoa, "Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising," Associated Press, 24 April 1998)

There are 70,000 prostitutes in Vietnam - an old figure that seems far too low given the increasing number of new karaoke bars, massage parlors and discos known for prostitution. (government statistics Keith B. Richburg, "The Go-Go Dancers Haven't Gone," The Washington Post, 15 September 1997)

5% of prostitutes in Vietnam are children, which means that 20,000 children are in prostitution in Vietnam. This rose from 11% in 1991. (Christian Science Monitor, 21 May 1997)

From 1996-1997, 1,335 people have been arrested since police began a crackdown on prostitution. Ninety-four karaoke bars were shut down, and 500 others suspended. ("Vietnam Police Crack Down on Vice," Associated Press, 10 February 1998)

As high as two thirds of the Vietnamese government officials are known buyers of women in prostitution in, massage parlours, karaoke bars and brothels. Their activities are financed through government agency "slush funds." ("Vietnamese government officials biggest customers for prostitutes," Deutsche Press-Agentur, 2 March 1998)

Prostitution is becoming a feature of the burgeoning tourism industry: hotels and tourist companies providing women to male buyers. After Vietnam shifted to a market economy, prostitution became so integrated into trade relations that business deals are often closed with the use of women as incentive or reward to foreign investors, bureaucrats and corporate representatives. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

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