Vietnam Women's Union

Effective measures must be taken to prevent trafficking in Vietnamese women to Malaysia

29/01/2007

On 20th December 2006, the Youth newspaper published the article “Vietnamese women were marketed to Malaysia”, the Vietnam Women’s Union sent an official correspondence on 22nd Dec. 2006 to the Embassy of Vietnam in Malaysia asking for justification of the cases and prompt intervention if necessary”. On the 28th Dec. 2006, the Embassy sent the fax no. 506 singed by Ambassador Nguyen Quoc Dung replying the VWU’s request as the followings:

“The Embassy of Vietnam in Malaysia would like to convey respectful complimentsto the Vietnam Women’s Union and high appreciation for your correspondence dated 22^nd Dec. 2006 regarding the article “Vietnamese women was marketed to Malaysia” published by the Youth Newspaper on 20^th Dec. 2006, we would like to reply as follow:

Having read an article about the above mentioned content on the local newspaper “The Star on Line” dated 19^th Dec. 2006, the Embassy had sent a diplomatic note to the Malaysian functional authorities stating the Vietnam’s stand of condemning trafficking in women all forms and inquiring Malaysian authorized persons to conduct fact-finding of this case and to give appropriate punishment to he traffickers if the case is true and to prevent the similar cases to be happened in the future.

In the afternoon of 27^th December 2006, a representative of the Embassy came and met with Mr. Michael Chong- chief of Malaysia’s Claim Settlement and Public Services Department (who opened the case on the newspaper) for further information of the case. Mr. Chong said brought up the issues based on the information provided to him by the 2 Vietnamese women girls in Nov. 2005; and it has not yet been justified. However, he just wanted to alert the public on the trafficking in the Vietnamese women. He also said that he will raise this issue again in a coming press conference to avoid misunderstanding in the public.

Therefore, according to us, this case would be hung up now. The Embassy will continue to request Malaysian functional authorities to take effective measures to prevent the trafficking in Vietnamese women in Malaysia.

The Embassy would like to propose that the VWU will cooperate with authorities at all levels to maximize communication and education to enhance women’s full awareness of risks may happen to international marriage (difference in culture and language; lack of information about husband’s family; high risk of being cheated to work in a bar or brothel…) thus reducing the trend to marry foreign men. In fact, several Vietnamese women coming to Malaysia through legal and illegal marriages faced a lot of risks or maltreatment as reported by local newspapers thus badly affecting the image and reputation of Vietnam in general and the Vietnamese women in particular.