Identifying and referring victims of human trafficking is difficult

The silence of the victims

According to local support staff, right from the first contact, many victims were afraid, panicked or had psychological control, so they could not share their true condition.

There was a case where a young woman brought back from the border continuously denied being bought and sold. It was not until the third day, after receiving psychological intervention and stabilizing her health, that she began to talk about the process of being scammed into selling to the other side of the border. This is not an isolated case.

In many localities, there are also cases where repatriated workers have fallen into a state of complete silence for fear of retaliation, causing the receptionist to spend many days accurately determining whether they are victims or not.

"Deep psychological damage often causes initial statements to be disjointed, contradictory or incomplete, making it difficult for the recipient to determine according to administrative criteria. The victims often cannot remember the location and time of detention because they have experienced severe trauma. If only relying on initial information, it will be very difficult to recognize whether this is a victim according to regulations" - a social protection officer shared.

This shows a big difference between reality and the ideal process, requiring flexibility and focusing on psychological factors in assessment.

Next, the ability to assess the victim's personalized needs is still a big challenge at the reception facility.

The case in a Central province in 2023 is a typical example: The mother-of-one reception facility, in which the mother showed signs of anxiety disorder, and the young child was severely malnourished.

However, the locality does not have psychologists and specialist doctors to assess the injury, causing the process of determining the need for support to take a long time, delaying the transfer of the mother and child to a sponsoring unit with more suitable conditions.

Special subjects such as people with disabilities, children with disabilities, the elderly or pregnant victims are often in a similar situation. Such situations reflect inconsistency in intervention capacity between localities.

One of the major gaps in the current legal framework is the situation of "waiting for verification". This is a sensitive period but there is no complete coverage policy.

A case in the West in 2024 is clear evidence: A young girl is waiting for identity verification but because she has not been recognized as a victim, she cannot stay at the facility long-term. Family tensions and the fear of discrimination caused her to leave her temporary shelter and lose contact with authorities for several weeks.

This case has forced the authorities to review the temporary protection process for people at risk who are victims but do not have enough verification documents.

Lack of unified information sharing platform and processes

Sharing with Lao Dong reporter, a representative of the Department of Social Protection, Ministry of Health admitted: Difficulties in referral, which is a decisive bridge between reception and support, are still quite clear.

"Each locality often uses different forms, the recorded information is not synchronous, while data sharing depends heavily on manual exchanges or direct calls.

The slow communication speed has caused some victims to wait many hours, even days to be transferred to a suitable facility. Some provinces have reported that inter-provincial identity verification especially for victims of cross-border trafficking still takes a lot of time due to the lack of a data connection mechanism - said a representative of the Department of Social Protection.

Grassroots officials also said that they often lack information when receiving victims from the border guards or police, leading to difficulties in preparing for medical needs, psychology or safe accommodation.

This lack of synchronization is not due to lack of goodwill, but due to the lack of a unified information sharing platform and processes operated in real time.

In the entire process chain, the victim is the one most directly affected by the above limitations. Having to declare many times, having to wait for referral, or not being fully protected during the waiting period for verification all risk further harm.

This not only affects their mental health, but also reduces their ability to cooperate with authorities and slows down the investigation of human trafficking cases.