Police in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong have detained a couple who allegedly coerced five young Vietnamese women, including two minors, into prostitution at Chinese brothels.
>> Human trafficking on the rise in Vietnam, police warn >> 12 sentenced for trafficking women to China Based on accusations by some of the couple’s victims, the provincial police arrested Le Thi Hien, 29, at her home in Vinh Phuc Province and her husband, Nguyen Duc Nguyen, 27, in Dak Lak Province’s Ban Me Thuot City and escorted them to Dak Nong for investigation on Thursday, November 21. The couple told investigators that since August, they had lured poor young women to China, promising them well-paid jobs. They were successful in bringing six young women to China by illegally crossing the Vietnam-China border. The couple then sold the women to a Vietnamese woman only identified as Thuy, who later sold the women to brothels in China. The police are investigating how much money Thuy paid the couple for the five women. Of the couple’s victims, two women, both 18 years old, managed to escape from brothels and return to Vietnam, whereupon they reported the crime to police. Meanwhile, the three remaining victims, two of whom are 16 years old and the other 19, have yet to be found, police said, adding that they are expanding the investigation to find and rescue them. Hien confessed to police that she has been previously convicted on the same charges. Hien said that she was previously sentenced to seven years in jail by the Vinh Phuc People’s Court for selling one young Vietnamese woman to China, but the court allowed her to delay her jail time since she had recently had a baby.
In a conference jointly held by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Hanoi on July 2, the General Department for Crime Prevention and Control warned that human trafficking in the country has become increasingly complex and international in nature.
Colonel Le Van Chuong, Deputy Chief of the Standing Office on Drugs and Crimes, said that human traffickers mainly target women and children, who account for about 80 percent of the total number of victims of human trafficking.