Saturday, November 18, 2006

Ugliest Face of Civilisation

President Bush is making an historic visit to Vietnam this weekend. While the agenda is crowded with discussion of trade, North Korea, Iraq, the War Against Terror and other issues, American Human Rights activists are pressing for the United States to make stronger statements about Vietnam's record on human rights.

Vietnam has many problems and one of the more serious for me is the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of poor women every year. Known for their extreme beauty and because in the Vietnamese culture the women are taught to care for the men, young Vietnamese women are prized wives.

Men from mostly Korea and Taiwan (but certainly many other nations) pay fees to join associations which bring them to Vietnam to find such "wives." A Korean or Taiwanese man may meet as many as 300 young Vietnamese women in a day while visiting Vietnam.

He is interviewing them so that he can find a "wife." The time he takes for his decision may be only an elapsed few minutes. He pays a heavy toll to leave Vietnam with his "wife."

The women are motivated by the hope of finding a better life – but this often doesn't happen.

Often the men lie about their income, careers, families and social standing to make themselves look more attractive. Once they get their Vietnamese "wives" back to Korea or Taiwan, they confiscate the young woman's passport, abuse her, force her into sex and generally treat these women with distain.

This situation of dealing in human trafficking is among the ugliest of human rights abuses. Added to the misery the Whites mostly Americans, Canadians are showing their interest in this trade and pulling Vietnamese girls into direct prostitution, the slave trade and child labour are also the by-product of Human Trafficking.

Source:Freddy Wattson (Socio-Economist working on Economic Balance in South-East Asia)

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