A conferenceon implementing the crackdown was held in the Mekong Delta city of CanTho on July 2 with the participation of representatives from theVietnamese Police Department for Investigation of Social Order-relatedCrimes, the Cambodian General Commissariat of National Police and theLao General Department of Police.
Major General HoSy Tien, Director of the Vietnamese department, said cross-border humantrafficking has increased and become complicated with the growingseriousness and number of trans-national rings and gangs.
The department reported that Vietnam uncovered 334 human traffickingcases and detained 616 traffickers in 2014. In the first half of 2015,it busted 136 cases, seized 227 traffickers and rescued 303 victims.
The number of human trafficking cases along the Vietnam-Laos andVietnam-Cambodia borders accounts for some 6 percent of the casesrecorded nationwide every year.
Most of the victimstrafficked via the Vietnam-Laos border reside in the former’s centralprovinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and ThuaThien-Hue. In Laos, they were forced to engage in sex work or wereexploited at construction sites, industrial areas or mines.
Meanwhile, a number of Vietnamese women and children were sold toCambodia to work at brothels, casinos, chicken fighting courses andmassage parlours.
Facing the complicateddevelopments, representatives from the three countries concurred tocontinue implementing bilateral agreements on enhancing counter-humantrafficking cooperation reached by the Vietnamese Government and its Laoand Cambodian counterparts.
They will also bolsterinformation exchanges, set up hotlines and liaison officers, andcoordinate to investigate and pursue criminals and repatriate victims.-VNA