Where is the Love?

by Ninh Thien Huong
April 30, 2004

Sitting on the plane heading to Vietnam from Taipei, I felt the excitement in me burning up. In a few hours, I will be able to, after more than thirteen years away, once again touch the land that has given me a soul that, no matter how far I was, remained vividly fervent in me. Meanwhile, I shared an intimate conversation with a 22-year-old Vietnamese woman sitting next to me. I learned that she was returning to Vietnam from Singapore, where she worked for a man as a “home caretaker.” Almost in tears, she told me that she was not able to endure the abuses – whether it was physical and/or sexual, she did not clarify – and decided that she had to return home to her husband and son. I was shocked to hear her story because, although I have read news about trafficking of Vietnamese women and children, I have never met the victims -- and did not expect to meet one so soon.

The conversation was the first and most unforgettable lesson that I learned on my four-month trip in Vietnam: destitution in the country has reached the abyss of humanity, a point in which people have to put their lives on the line of unjustifiable abuses and negligence in exchange for – if there is any -- some money. For these victims, I am not angry at them. However, I am angry for them. Indeed, I was just a naïve tourist, exploring the country from corner to corner to learn more about the “con rồn, cháu tiên” ancestry that gave birth to my name. However, I was not ignorant enough to ignore the fact that human beings are endowed the alienable rights to live in freedom and be protected from the infringements of others.

The current government in Vietnam has not only deprived Vietnamese people of these rights but has also exploited them to secure their own wealth. During the past few years, Vietnamese leaders have fed much of its energy to selling “goods,” which are Vietnamese women and children in their perspectives, inside the country and abroad. For instance, prostitution has become an instrumental business tool underneath the structure of the booming tourism industry in Vietnam. While I was in Vietnam, I visited many attractive sites, such as Ðà Lạt, Huế, Nha Trang, Ðà Nẵng, Hà Nội, and Hội An. At all of these places, despite its superficial native innocence and tranquility, women and children are selling their bodies. Tourists from abroad can satisfy their sexual pleasures and gratification, at a price insignificant to their pockets, in places such as massage parlor, bars, and karaoke bars. According to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacifica, there are currently between 60,000 and 200,00 Vietnamese and women and girls in prostitution, with 6.3% younger than 16 years old. In Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific, the organization reports: “Prostitution is becoming a feature of the burgeoning tourism industry…After Vietnam shifted to a market economy, prostitution became so integrated into trade relations that business deals are often closed with the use of women as incentive or reward to foreign investors, bureaucrats and corporate representatives.”

In Nha Trang, the business has become so dangerously pervasive at the cost of young children’s lives that a Vietnamese Canadian woman opens the Crazy Kim Bar as a vehicle to thwart the growing problem of pedophile. She hires Vietnamese children to work at her cozy bar and opens educational programs to help them stay away from prostitution. From my visit to this place, I had a chance to talk to the youth and listen to their stories of life struggles, one in which that poverty has relegated many of them toward prostitution. Although the bar may be a minuscule effort to eradicate sexual abuses in Vietnam, the initiative speaks aloud of the problem in Vietnam and gives poor Vietnamese children some
sparkling hope in their lives.

In addition to prostitution’s foothold inside Vietnam, Vietnamese women and children are also carrying price tags outside of the country. Trafficking of these particular groups has heightened since the Vietnamese government cannot resolve the ensuing abject poverty and the problem of extremely low job opportunities. While they are pushing the problem outside of the country border, the government is not only forsaking one of their roles as protectors of their people but is also selfishly thriving on the wealth generated by this business. According to the 2003 World Report by Human Rights Watch, the government plays a direct tacit support role in criminal networks of trafficking hundreds of Vietnamese women and girls.

Four months later, upon leaving Vietnam, I thought that I would also be distancing myself from the horrific reality of the country. However, I was wrong. On my flight from Hanoi to Taipei, I met two Vietnamese women leaving Vietnam to work in Hong Kong. They were sad that they will be separated from their families for two years, but the prospect of making some money to send home soothed their anxieties and inspired some glittering hope in them. As I listened to their stories, I felt an immediate pang of pain and sorrow. Many Vietnamese people, trapped by the institutionalized status quo that posit the few communist dictators on top, are not born into a life of opportunity and hope but of futility, slavery, and repression.

Whether we identify ourselves as Vietnamese American, Vietnamese, or other ethnic identity, all of us hold the capacity to create changes for Vietnamese people in Vietnam. We are thousands of miles away from the country, but we cannot be apathetic because the reality of oppression in Vietnam will continue to confront our lives. For instance, take the case of two Vietnamese women being sold on e-Bay as if they are material properties; the problem “in” Vietnam is not longer constrained by the country’s geographical border. Any battle for the good is difficult and challenging. We may fall on the way, but we will stand up with greater determination. We will have each other, side by side. And the good shall prevail.