The Internet and mobile phones have contributed to the rapid growth of prostitution in Vietnam, according to a new report.
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| A brothel raided by police |
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids & Social Affairs held a conference to sum up the implementation of the Prostitution Prevention Programme during the period of 2006 and 2010 in Hue City, Thua Thien – Hue Province on September 27 and 28.
Nguyen Van Minh, director of the Department of Social Evil Prevention under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids & Social Affairs said that recently, the prostitution business was conducted through Internet or mobile phones, contributing to its rapid growth. There is an increasing number of websites providing information on sexual activities with hundreds of addresses for brothels.
Through the Internet, prostitutes can directly offer or market their business by themselves. They also publicise their personal mobile phone numbers so that clients can contact them easily. They have established inter-provincial prostitution networks from the North to the South. This method can cause difficulties in uncovering and investigating from the police.
According to a report presented at the conference, the number of prostitutes aged from 18 to 25 accounts for the majority of prostitutes, making approximately 42% of the estimated 31,000 prostitutes nationwide.
Currently, prostitutes tend to enter the industry at very young ages. According to the Ministry, about 15% of prostitutes are aged 16 to 18 and about 35% are 25 to 35.
During the past 5 years, the police at different levels have discovered a total of over 4,200 brothels with nearly 18,000 people involved including owners of brothels, prostitution brokers, prostitutes and their clients.
Among these, 2,812 cases with 3,682 persons were imposed criminal charges, 1,407 cases were imposed administrative fines and over 5,000 people were taken to health care centres.
The police have successfully exposed many international criminal rings such as networks engaged in trafficking women from Vietnam to Macau, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Cambodia, along with several high class prostitution rings in Ho Chi Minh City.
