Child sex tourism slides under law

The survey, jointly conducted by the Ministry of Justice and the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) in August and September in nine provinces and cities, is part of a four-year project to combat the sexual exploitation of children in the Mekong sub-region.

At a conference on October 18, Deputy Minister of Justice Hoang the Lien said that increases in tourism brought not only huge economic benefits but also new challenges, including child sex abuse.

Both male and female children are victims of domestic and international child sex offenders, he said.

In the joint project with UNODC, the ministry and agencies reviewed Vietnam’s legal framework in order to recommend amendments in line with international norms, he said.

Meanwhile, Zhuldyz Akisheva, the country manager of UNODC Vietnam Office, said that poverty, lack of sustainable livelihoods and gender inequality are among the factors contributing to the boom of so-called sex-tourism involving minors in the sub-region including Vietnam.

However, Vietnam’s Penal Code, passed 11 years ago, has many limitations when addressing sexual abuse by traveling offenders, she said, emphasizing the need to amend the code.

Most respondents do not understand what child sex tourism is, reflecting the absence of a working definition.

“This absence hinders agencies trying to define the scope of child sex tourism crime and makes it harder for them to collect statistics about those crimes, thus weakening the effectiveness of crime prevention”, said Nguyen Van Dung, Deputy Director of the Ministry’s Criminal Law Division.

About 80 percent of respondents in the surveyed cities and provinces believed child sex tourism is increasing, based on child-sex statistics.

Moreover, the 1999 Penal Code uses two definitions “child” and “juvenile”, but both these subjects are applied only to principles of criminal liability, where they mean that younger citizens are given softer punishments than adult criminals.

Based on regulations of the Penal Code and child-related laws, children are defined as people under 16 years of age. This definition differs from the basic international standard, which identifies children as those less than 18 years of age. This disparity significantly affects cross-border cooperation to prevent and combat child abuse.

UNODC recommends ensuring that the law defines children to be persons under the age of 18 and provides the full range of protections for all children under this age threshold.