Great concern about child trafficking and violation

In the first half of this year, 192 cases involved in the trafficking of 459 women and children were uncovered in Vietnam, an increase of 25 from the same period a year earlier.

Notably, woman and child trafficking rings operate on a large scale and mainly focus on poor rural children who have a low level of education about the law and are unemployed.

In his speech delivered at a recent forum on anti trafficking in women and children, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong said this is a global issue. In many countries, he said children continue to be trafficked and violated physically and mentally despite great efforts made by the international community and individual countries.

Child trafficking in Vietnam remains serious as many children have been cheated to be sold abroad and violated physically and their dignity has been destroyed.

On June 27, 2007, the Prime Minister issued an instruction to accelerate the implementation of an action programme on combating women and child traffickers.

What do children wish?

Many messages expressing children’s heart-felt wishes were sent to the forum,  “We want to learn practical and essential things and life skills to know how to protect ourselves.”, “ We wish that child traffickers and those abusing child labour and molesting children must be duly punished under law”, “We want to have organisations which can protect and assist street children.”

Nguyen Hong Cuc from Viet Yen district in northern Bac Giang province said, “It is imperative to set up consultancy centres at the grassroots level to help sexually and physically violated children get over humiliation about their situation within the community.”

Tran Thi Huong from northern Bac Giang province confided, “While child trafficking has become commonplace, most children are lacking the necessary information and essential life skills to protect themselves. Some living in my place were recently tricked for sale to China but fortunately, they were rescued by police at the Mong Cai border gate in Quang Ninh province.”

In regard to their concern, Vice-Chairwoman of the Vietnam Committee for Population, Family and Children Ta Thi Ngoc Thinh said, “The telephone number of 18001567 is now available in Hanoi which provides consultancy services for children. However, children in other localities can ask for advice from staff involved in population, family and children, police or members of local Women Unions and Youth Unions”.

Deputy PM Trong stressed that ministries, sectors and social organisations should play an active role in helping child victims integrate into the community.

During the country’s process of national development and international integration, it is necessary to build an effective child protection system to deal with child-related issues including child trafficking in the long run, Mr Trong noted.