June 9, 2009: This week’s round of news on Vietnam and human trafficking covers a detailed report on Vietnamese women and sex slavery, as well as trafficking of Vietnamese children to the United Kingdom for forced labor on cannabis farms.

From Poverty to Slavery

The San Jose Mercury News ran an excellent feature on June 4 painting the big picture of the human trafficking that carries Vietnamese girls from rural poverty to urban slavery.

The article by John Brodeau notes that Vietnam, “with an abundance of beautiful young women living in desperate straits, is a magnet for human brokers — some of whom pay families to marry off their daughters to men in Korea, Taiwan and China; others are linked directly to human trafficking.” The report also delves into the trafficking of young women to Cambodia for the dangerous and violent sex trade there.

UK Drugs, Vietnamese Kids

A June 7 article in Metro describes how “Underage workers from Vietnam and China are among those working as gardeners in illegal drug factories … because the child labor can help generate multi-million-[dollar] profits.” The report says about six percent of all children trafficked to the UK end up toiling in factories of this type.

“When child victims are recovered from cannabis factories we have to make sure their rights come first – there’s no way they can properly have consented to these roles,” Glynn Rankin, deputy head of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, told Metro.