A project on preventing human trafficking in Vietnam’s Mekong delta has showed significant results after the first phase conducted with financial support by the U.S. State Department. With an amount of $33,300 for the first phase during 2008 – 2010 and $31,500 funded by the Kuwaiti government for the second phase from 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, the victims of human trafficking cases in the region have been falling, the Voice of Vietnam said. The cases busted in areas along with Cambodia have been on sharp fall, it said, adding that those with involvement of both Vietnamese Cambodian traffickers topped lists of serious cases in the past years. Vietnam and Cambodia share a 1,137-kilometer borderline along 10 Vietnamese southwestern provinces where transnational human trafficking gangs take a shelter. Human trafficking detected along border with Cambodia often accounts for 11% of the country’s total cases. The U.S.’s support is part of its projects to curb Vietnam’s human trafficking activities in which the Vietnamese government is said to abet in. The United Nations Inter-Agency Project (UNIAP) said that the victims could be shipped to China or other Asian countries, Western Europe and Middle East for labor or sex slavery. (Vovnews.vn April 23)
