IOM and the Vietnam Women's Union have set
up a telephone hotline covering Kien Giang and three other border
provinces to warn potential labour migrants about human trafficking
along the Cambodian border.

The hotline, which is part of a larger
cross-border trafficking prevention and victim protection project
funded by the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees
and Migration, will also tell people about how to migrate safely
and legally, and inform them about local vocational training
opportunities.

According to IOM Ho Chi Minh project officer,
Ha Thi Kim Lien, trafficking between Vietnam and Cambodia is "a
growing concern" for the Vietnamese government. "By working with
the Women's Union to raise awareness, we hope to reduce the
vulnerability of potential migrants, particularly impoverished
women and children in border provinces," she added.

Other awareness raising initiatives planned
include TV commercials, leaflets and the creation of Migration
Information Centres, where people thinking about migrating either
inside Vietnam or abroad, can obtain accurate, factual
information.

According to official figures, more than
10,000 women and children were listed as "missing" in Vietnam in
2005. Nearly 700 women and children are known to have been
trafficked to Cambodia, where an estimated 22,000 Vietnamese women
work in the sex industry.

Human traffickers are also active on Vietnam's
northern border with China. Vietnamese women are trafficked for
forced marriages and, increasingly for sex work in booming Chinese
cities across the border.

In 2005 IOM and the Women's Union opened a
vocational training centre for victims in the border province of
Quang Ninh, northeast of Hanoi.

The centre teaches the women to cook, with a
view to finding employment in the Ha Long Bay tourist industry.
After four months of formal training, they work as intern in hotels
and restaurants in the area for two months, before then being
helped to find jobs. Twenty-four women have graduated from the
course and 25 more are now in training.

For further information, please contact:

Andy Bruce

IOM Hanoi

Tel: +84.47366258

E-mail: "mailto:abruce@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">abruce@iom.int