Vietnam plays a regional leadership role on preventing and combating human trafficking: US official
WVR - That is the comment of Mr. Jonathan Turley, Deputy Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) of the US Department of State during his recent working visit in Vietnam.
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| Vietnam plays a regional leadership role on preventing and combating human trafficking: Mr. Jonathan Turley, Deputy Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) of the US Department of State in a recent interview with The World and Vietnam Report. (Photo: Long Vu) |
In a recent interview with The World and Vietnam Report, Deputy Director Jonathan Turley appreciated Vietnam's efforts in preventing and combating human trafficking.
Could you please share the highlights of the cooperation between Vietnam and the United States in combating human trafficking over the past years?
It is a pleasure to be back in Vietnam. I worked on Vietnam issues back in Washington 10 years ago when we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-US relations. So it's such a pleasure to be back in Hanoi, Vietnam as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of our relationship and the upgrading of our relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
We work on a lot of different areas under our Comprehensive strategic partnership, but one of the important areas of cooperation that we have with Vietnam is on trafficking and persons issues. This is a shared challenge for both of our countries and a shared priority for both of our governments. We have worked together very closely bilaterally and also in multilateral fora including ASEAN on this issue.
The United States greatly supports Vietnam's efforts. We have, for example, 10 million USD in programming that we provide to Vietnam to help build the government's capacity to combat trafficking in persons issues here. So that's why I'm here today, because we want to continue to engage with Vietnam to build our partnership in this area as part of our broader partnership under the comprehensive strategic partnership that we have with Vietnam.
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| Roundtable discussion between the J/TIP Office of the US Department of State and Vietnamese authorities at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Headquarters on January 14, 2025. (Photo: Long Vu) |
How do you evaluate the outcomes of your visit and working sessions in Vietnam/your collaboration with Vietnamese authorities?
I’d really like to commemorate the efforts Vietnam has made to combat trafficking in persons. The Government is obviously very engaged on this issue and has been taking a number of steps to really address this issue. We recognized these efforts in our trafficking in persons report last year. For example, the increase in the number of investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of traffickers, the increase in the number of victims that were screened and identified and referred to services, those were very important steps.
We also commend Vietnam for the Migration Profile 2023 that it launched. That's a very positive effort. Vietnam repatriated over 4,000 potential victims of trafficking from online scam operations in the region. And just recently, Vietnam approved revisions to its 2011 Law on Human Trafficking Prevention and Control, and I think that was a very important step.
So we had very productive meetings with the Government here. We talked about areas that we could cooperate, and we encouraged increased efforts by Vietnam when it comes to investigations and prosecutions and convictions, when it comes to victim screening, particularly for vulnerable populations and victim identification. Those are important steps.
And of course, the implementing guidelines for this new revised 2011 anti-trafficking law, I think those will be really important steps and we encourage Vietnam, and again, had very productive discussions with the government about ways we can continue to cooperate on these areas.
What is your assessment of Vietnam's efforts in combating human trafficking in recent years?
Again, we really commemorate the efforts Vietnam has made, and we highlighted some of those key efforts in our most recent trafficking persons report from last year.
As I mentioned, an increase in the number of investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of traffickers here, an increase in the number of victims that are screened and identified and referred to services. Those are, I think, very important steps by Vietnam.
The revision to the 2011 Law on Human Trafficking Prevention and Control is a very important step that Vietnam has made. We had very productive meetings with the Government here and encouraged Vietnam to continue these efforts, to increase these efforts, to increase the number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions of traffickers, to increase screening, particularly for vulnerable populations, for example, individuals and commercials sectors, potentials victims from online scam operation overseas, individuals working in dangerous sectors like fishing and seafood…
I think these are all very important efforts that Vietnam is making and again, we are having productive conversation with Vietnamese Government on that.
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| Vietnam Migration Profile 2023. (Nguồn: IOM) |
In the context of increasing migration and increasingly sophisticated cybercrime, what solutions do you think Vietnam should adopt to enhance the effectiveness of its anti-human trafficking efforts?
One of the other important areas that we discussed is the effort in cooperating together to combat online scam operations. This has emerged as a serious challenge in the region that affects both of our countries, citizens from both of our countries. It affects other countries in the region, and we want to work together even more with Vietnam to address this issue.
Unfortunately, we see human traffickers developing, using increasingly sophisticated methods to traffic victims to engage in criminality, particularly using technology. And we've seen the emergence of online scam compounds in the region that have defrauded our citizens, Americans, Vietnamese citizens, of millions of billions of dollars, but that have also entrapped individuals in these online scam compounds into forced labour situations and forced criminality.
It's a major concern. But we greatly commend Vietnam for its proactive efforts to identify victims, to repatriate potential victims from these online scam compounds, its regional leadership role on this issue.
The United States has also taken a very proactive role in this. We has a number of programs that we fund in this region to help build capacity of governments in the region to address online scam operations. One of the things that we emphasized in our meetings here was the importance of screening people being repatriated from these online scam compounds for trafficking indicators to make sure people are not punished for forced criminality that they are forced by traffickers to commit. We had very productive discussions with Vietnam, and this is an area that we have worked together very closely on and want to continue.
Thank you!
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| The J/TIP delegation of the US Department of State and representatives of Vietnamese authorities. (Photo: Long Vu) |
