Japanese-funded anti-human trafficking hotline enters second phase
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MoLISA) joined the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to launch the second phase (2019-2021) of a JICA-funded hotline project on curbing human trafficking in Vietnam on December 14.
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Since 2012, with financial and technical support from JICA, the MoLISA developed hotline 1800 1567, which previously supplied child protection consultation services.
To date, the hotline has been changed to 111, and two regional operation centres have been established in the central city of Da Nang and the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. Information and service exchanges have been maintained between the north and northern central region, the south central and Central Highlands region, and the southeast and Mekong Delta region.
The second phase of the project aims at setting up a national hotline and pushing for trans-border cooperation with neighbouring countries in combating human trafficking.
Between October 2013 and June 2018, the hotline received close to 13,000 calls, of which over 9,000 gave information and 3,500 sought consultation.
According to Dinh Van Trinh, deputy head of the anti-human trafficking office under the Ministry of Public Security, Vietnam has seen an average of 400 human trafficking cases each year, involving around 1,000 victims and 600 traffickers. Ninety percent of the victims are women and girls, aged between 15 and 30.
