Prostitution is totally banned in Vietnam but the nation was reported to have almost 33,000 sex workers in 2013, up 2,800 over the previous year, according to an online meeting on HIV/AIDS prevention.

At the conference organized in Hanoi by the National Committee for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, drugs, and prostitution, authorities said they could only identify 9,000 of them.

The period in the two years 2012-13 was the most complicated time since prostitution, which is considered a social evil, developed further beyond the control of relevant authorities. Sex workers mainly gather in tourist hotspots as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Nam Dinh, according to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs.

Now, Vietnam has 83,000 units working in sensible condition as bars, discotheques, karaoke and massaging. 8,000 of them have the regular services of young women who are suspected of disguised sex workers.

So far, Vietnam has carried out a national plan in 20 pilot provinces to help prostitutes give up the job and further integrate into the communities by giving them loans, but only 500 prostitutes have been given loans worth a total of VND2 billion (US$96,200).

Last year saw an increase of cases of prostitution-related crimes over the previous year.