Vietnam Human Rights Network
4745 El Cajon Boulevard, Ste. 104
San Diego, CA 92115 - U.S.A.
Tel.: (619) 284-5111 Fax: (619) 284-5115
Email: vnhrnet@vietnamhumanrights.net
STATEMENT ON
THE TRAGEDY OF
VIETNAMESE WOMEN TRAFFICKING
During the
last several years, the following sad events have happened in Vietnam:
1. Lots of Vietnamese women, due to their plight, have had
to assume jobs unworthy of their
dignity, and many Vietnamese women and children have been sold to
neighboring Cambodia to become prostitutes. The most recent evidence was
reported on 1-23-2004 on NBC TV network, under the title “Children Trafficking
Vice”, with images of a 5 year-old girl being forced to serve as a sexual toy in
Cambodia. The report was then made available on the World Wide Web,
2. The export of Vietnamese women to be “wives in Taiwan”
has actively been in existence in Vietnam for nearly 10 years, especially in
recent time:
-
According to the Vietnamese “Youth” magazine, official statistics showed that
at the end of 2003, more than 65,000 Vietnamese women had been exported to
Taiwan to become “brides”, with 63.5% of them “getting married through
intermediaries.”
- On the
World Wide Web, hundreds of Web pages originated in Taiwan and Vietnam are
found advertising their special service of “providing Vietnamese brides for
Taiwanese men” accompanied by thousands of pictures of Vietnamese girls updated
daily,
- Recently
on March 2, 2004, a Taiwan eBay Web site introduced a auction of three Vietnamese
girls, who looked young and pretty in their pictures, with the starting price
of Taiwan’s 180,500 dollars (equivalent of US $5,400). The auction noted that,
“the items were from Vietnam, and will be shipped to Taiwan
only."
These services, though often kept secret or disguised as
“marriage introduction”, have actually been part of a large-scale system,
protected or shared by the Vietnamese communist authorities, that aims at
luring young Vietnamese girls, especially those from poor rural villages, for
export to Taiwan to become “wives”.
Many news reports, particularly the one made by the Vietnamese Missionaries in
Taiwan, disclosed that a great number of Vietnamese brides in Taiwan were tortured
and mistreated like sexual slaves or merely servants; or even worse as
exploitation
in prostitution.
3. It shows
the really tragic plight of the Vietnamese labor today: these poor people are
pushed down by the regime to the bottom of poverty and despair, along with the decay
of social morality, so tragic that they have to “sell themselves” voluntarily
to be slaves, to accept going to hell hoping to maintain their own survival and
that of their unfortunate families. For their part, the Vietnamese authorities
have so far remained indifferent and irresponsible in regards to these illegal
and inhuman activities that have openly lasted almost ten years and caused up to
80,000 victims everywhere in Vietnam.
Because of
these facts, the Vietnam Human Rights Network solemnly:
1. Demands that the Vietnamese
communist authorities immediately put an end to the ‘human trafficking” and
make their best effort to raise the people’s living standard together with the
eradication of corruption and injustice so that the Vietnamese people can avoid
being trapped in this unprecedented tragic social condition.
2. Requests the governments of
Cambodia and Taiwan to firmly act to prevent all illegal, inhuman trafficking
of Vietnamese women and children and show proper respect for their dignity.
3. Requests international Human Rights organizations and
free countries to denounce and pressure the Vietnamese communists into actually
and promptly ending the tragedy of trafficking of Vietnamese women and
children, and forcing the whole people to live in extreme poverty.
4. Calls on all Vietnamese everywhere to stand up and fight
to protect the dignity and human rights of the people who are being in critical
danger right in our dear homeland of
Vietnam.
Made in overseas, 3-22-2004
Nguyen Thanh Trang
Chairman, Coordinating Committee