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News & Updates

IOM and Partners Identify Counter Trafficking Needs in Vietnam1

IOM's Hanoi office co-organized a counter-trafficking training needs assessment for government officials that took place on 14-15 March 2005.

The two-day workshop in Lang Son province, jointly organized with the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP), UNICEF, ILO and Save the Children (UK), assessed the capacity of Vietnamese government agencies to implement the National Plan of Action on human trafficking adopted in 2004.

Ministries and departments tasked with implementing the plan will use the workshop to identify their training needs and as a first step towards building a network able to deliver a coordinated inter-agency response to combat human trafficking in Vietnam.

Trafficking in Vietnam is a growing problem. Women are being trafficked for prostitution in Cambodia while the trafficking pattern towards China concerns mostly forced marriages. According to some sources, approximately 5,000 Vietnamese women work in prostitution in Cambodia and 15,000 Vietnamese women have married Chinese men, both through legal and illegal border crossing activities. The percentage of victims of trafficking among these 15,000 is considerable high.

IOM counter trafficking projects in Vietnam currently include the return and reintegration of trafficking victims from Cambodia, support for the Little Rose shelter in Ho Chi Minh City and work with vulnerable communities in Halong near Vietnam’s border with China.

For more information, please contact

Noortje Verhart
IOM Hanoi
Tel: +84 (0) 4-736-6258
E-mail: nverhart@iom.int