Feature: Vietnam society taking tolerant steps towards prostitution

"People like me used to be scorned and receive the cold shoulder from others, but now we're treated like ordinary women and given free training and get decent jobs," said Ngoc Anh, a member of a Vietnamese club called: "We Are Women."

Ngoc Anh from Ho Chi Minh City said she first engaged in the world's oldest profession to make enough quickly to treat her sick elder sister. "When I was working as a prostitute, I didn't fell human. I was mistreated and even beaten by pimps and sex buyers," recalled Ngoc Anh.

"But just before I hit rock bottom, I found the We Are Women club," she added.

Ngoc Anh came to know the club when its members conducted outreach work for prostitutions from a karaoke lounge. The club introduced her to the L'Oreal hairstyle training center to study hair-dressing free of charge. "After four months of studies, I was introduced by the center to work for a hairdressers," she said.

Through providing funds for vocational training and giving legal information to prostitutes, the club has, through mapping out business plans, helped many prostitutes reintegrate into the community in a sustainable way.

The club is a pilot model of a project on widening prostitutes' access to social services in Ho Chi Minh City and was implemented by the Social Evils Prevention and Fight Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the municipal Social Evils Prevention and Fight Bureau and the international organization CARE.

After two years of operation, the club has approached and encouraged around 470 prostitutes to become its members. Now, more than 50 prostitutes frequently participate in the club's activities.

Eighteen members have been sent to the center to study hair-dressing. The training fee, 35 million Vietnamese dong (156 U.S. dollars) per person, is covered by the club. The club has also created favorable conditions for a member to sell takeaway food and drinks in front of the club's office.

The bureau has hired experts to offer consultancy and legal assistance to prostitutes in Ho Chi Minh City, while providing them with some skills and information to timely deal with cases of violence and abuse.

The club has held many seminars and talks between prostitutes and local authorities, especially police officials, so that they are more tolerant to the women, and more proactive in helping them, especially when the prostitutes muster enough courage to report the wrongdoings of pimps or sex buyers.

The bureau's head Tran Ngoc Du said the pilot model of the We Are Women Club will be multiplied. In addition, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the municipal Women's Union, the municipal AIDS Prevention and Fight Committee and the Ho Chi Minh City Lawyers Association, will strengthen their coordination to better protect prostitutes and help them reintegrate into the community.

Such coordinated operations of tolerance and acceptance have been found in other cities and provinces across Vietnam.

At a seminar held in Hanoi in late September, Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen Trong Dam, said Vietnam will not rule out the possibility of decriminalizing prostitution.

"Decriminalizing prostitution does not mean legalizing it. We will create safer environments for prostitutes who will be able to rely on management agencies and police," he said.

However, Vietnam will not establish a profession association designated for prostitutes, because the country has yet to recognize prostitution as a legitimate profession. Vietnamese policies which regulate prostitution stem from an ideology that frames sex work and sex workers as "social evils."

Under the laws that govern civil society organizations, it is not possible for sex workers to form self-governed community-based groups that have a legitimate voice in decision making. However, within the current limitations, key players have demonstrated a strong track record in recent years in reforming the industry.

"Vietnam Network of Sex Workers has been established as a network of 29 self-help groups providing health and harm reduction, and community reintegration service to 4,800 current or past sex workers," said the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Vietnam.

Notably, recent legal and administrative changes have seen an end to the arbitrary detention of sex workers and an increase in some legal protection.

At the seminar, Nguyen Xuan Lap, head of the ministry's Social Evils Prevention and Fight Department, said a draft law on prostitution will be submitted to Vietnam's top legislative body in 2018.

Under the draft law, prostitution will remain illegal, but prostitutes will be given better protection and assistance, Lap said, noting that in 2012, Vietnam removed the regulation on detaining prostitutes and sending them to rehabilitation centers.

A senior official of the Ho Chi Minh City Social Evils Prevention and Fight Bureau told Xinhua recently that the city may, in 2018, form a red-light district, first by placing businesses such as massage parlors, karaoke lounges and spas into a concentrated area for better management.

"Prostitution will not be legalized in Vietnam, but our city will better manage and protect prostitutes," the official said.

According to statistics from the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the country currently has some 126,000 potentially illicit services such as massage parlors and karaoke lounges which employ nearly 100,000 women.

There are over 700 prostitution hot spots nationwide, mainly located in Hanoi, Hai Phong and Nam Dinh in the northern region, and Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Khanh Hoa and Dong Nai in the southern region.

The ILO in Vietnam has estimated that there are nearly 101,300 sex workers, including 72,000 women in the country.

An ILO study, released at a policy workshop in September in Hanoi, showed that most Vietnamese sex workers entered the job voluntarily, but had limited control of occupational safety and health implications.

As much of the sex industry is associated with the entertainment industry, many recommendations made by the study targeted the industry in general.

"We need to make sure that employers of entertainment business venues comply with the laws to protect safety and health and uphold the labor rights of their employees," Lee Chang-hee, director of ILO Vietnam said.

"The role of health and labor inspectors at a local level is important. They should be sensitized and trained on this topic, and in their inspection plans, safety and health and the labor rights of workers in the entertainment business venues should be included," said the director. Endit