On March 29, the House International Relations Subcommittees on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations and Asia and the Pacific held a joint hearing to examine the U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, which took place in February 2006.
Calling the Human Rights Dialogue “an important component of mature relations between states,” Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee Chair James Leach (R-IA) stated, “It is natural that Vietnamese human rights issues will receive increased attention as the Administration considers whether to extend Vietnam’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern for violations of religious freedom, and as the Congress considers approving Permanent Normal Trade Relations for Vietnam, in connection with Vietnam’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization this year.”
Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations Subcommittee Chair Christopher Smith (R-NJ) expressed his concern that Vietnam continues to enforce its “two-child” policy, adding that it “has led to a large and growing imbalance in male and female births, which will only increase its already severe problems as a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking. According to last year’s State Department’s Human Trafficking report, Vietnam remained a Tier II country because of its serious trafficking problems, but was removed from the Watch List. Many of us think this was an error, and that Vietnam’s response to its trafficking problems remain inadequate.”
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Barry Lowenkron said that during the U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, “I emphasized to my Vietnamese interlocutors that the protection and promotion of what President Bush calls the ‘non-negotiable demands of human dignity’ are central to our foreign policy and that these non-negotiable demands will be key considerations as we build our bilateral relationships across the globe, including our relationship with Vietnam…And I stressed that while it serves our mutual interests to work together on shared concerns such as stemming the spread of avian and pandemic influenza and HIV/AIDS, and fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and other international crimes, the human rights agenda is inseparable from the other dimensions of U.S. policy toward Vietnam.”
Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, executive director of Boat People SOS, said that Vietnam is a major source of human trafficking with many women and children being forced to work in sweatshops or as sex slaves in other Asian countries: “Taiwan currently has one hundred thousand contract workers from Vietnam…They were forced to work to pay off their debt to the brokers before repatriation. A number of female workers were raped by their brokers. Dropped from Tier 1 to Tier 2 in last year’s Trafficking in Persons annual report, Taiwan has introduced several measures to combat trafficking. In response, Vietnam has shifted to South Korea as a destination for its contract work.” Dr. Thang also noted that an estimated 80,000 Vietnamese work in Malaysia, and many female contractors have been lured into prostitution. He argued that Vietnam should be named as a Tier 3 country in the next trafficking report and urged the United States to organize a conference on human rights, civil society, trafficking, and religious freedom during President Bush’s visit to Vietnam.
The subcommittees also heard testimony from Kay Reibold, a project development specialist with the Montagnard Human Rights Organization, which provides services to the people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Explaining that the Montagnards face persecution because of their Christian faith, she said that many seek asylum in Cambodia where “police threaten [that] anyone assisting Montagnard asylum seekers will be charged with human trafficking and considered criminals. We urge UNHCR [the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] and all governments of the free world [to] recognize that this action violates Cambodia’s obligation to the refugee convention. It is especially disturbing considering that both Vietnam and Cambodia are among countries who are prime movers in the human trafficking of women and children.” Ms. Reibold also noted that “families, especially the wives of Montagnard men who escaped to Cambodia, are particularly vulnerable to harassment, humiliation, coercion, and in some cases, beating and imprisonment. We have interviewed Montagnard women who have arrived as refugees in the U.S. and they often speak of what they endured in their villages with constant threats by the police, including threats to renounce their Christian faith and to abandon their Montagnard husbands and leave their marriages.”
