Abolitionist Movement [p.2]

Equally as important as raising funds is the campaign to raise awareness among the community about human trafficking, both of which were accomplished by the coordination of VietACT and uNAVSA staff members and volunteers during the Relay Against Trafficking benefit dinners, discussion panels and walks.

Notable events include the discussion panel hosted by VASCON 2 featuring distinguished speakers such as Nguyen Van Cuong (Associate Executive Director of VMWBO), Kim Chi Nguyen (VietACT staff and uNAVSA Relay Against Trafficking Coordinator), Do Le AnhDao (NHA Magazine staff writer), and Phoebe Lin (chair of the UT Anti-Human Trafficking Campaign), and University of Texas, Austin’s weeklong awareness campaign. Other events included benefit dinners hosted by the Vietnamese Professionals Society and the Denver Vietnamese Women Association, discussion panels featuring VietACT co-founders Tammy Tran and Huy Phan, and a culture night dedicated to the Beauty of Viet Nam at Ohio State University.

The international campaign to combat trafficking gained widespread attention at the Vietnamese Video Music Awards hosted in Atlanta, Georgia and the Human Race of Silicon Valley in Northern California. In addition, Vietnamese Student Associations and Unions across the country raised thousands of dollars through fundraisers and donated proceeds from their culture nights to VietACT.

On May 13, 2006, over 350 people participated in the Southern California Walk Against Human Trafficking, marking a major victory for VietACT. The walk was a success largely due to the hard work and dedication of students from Southern California colleges and high schools who volunteered countless hours in preparation for the walk. Walk participants made their way down Bolsa Avenue, a street running right through the heart of Little Saigon, and stopped at various stations set up along the route. At these stations, participants were educated on the major issues concerning human trafficking and were called to take a proactive step in eradicating human slavery by writing letters to Ambassador John Miller, partaking in the VietACT photo campaign, and pledging their commitment by creating a human link. One of the stations gave participants an opportunity to write letters to human trafficking victims that a VietACT intern will take with her to Taiwan this summer.

The leaders of these volunteer organizations are not only staff heroes to the volunteers who pledged their commitment to combat trafficking during the relay events. More significantly, this group of people serves as a symbol of hope for the thousands of Vietnamese men, women and children who are victims of modern-day slavery.

Ambassador John Miller, who also serves as Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, has emphasized that modern-day slavery still exists in the 21st century in the form of forced labor in factories, sweat jobs, plantations, slavery based on sexual exploitation, and slavery tied to domestic servitude, despite America abolishing slavery centuries ago.

The harsh reality is that about 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders and forced, defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. There are currently 100,000 Vietnamese brides and 95,000 Vietnamese laborers in Taiwan. As many as 50,000 people are brought into the United States by human traffickers who keep them in slave-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude.

Although these numbers may seem atrocious and outrageous, the most important thing to remember is that these violations against human rights are not happening to the nameless or faceless. These crimes are being committed against our own Vietnamese brothers and sisters and it would be an injustice to refer to the victims as merely numbers and statistics. They are survivors with names, faces, stories and a pain which we, as a community, must share.

Nguyen Vanessa graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a bachelor’s degree in English/Comparative Literature in 2004.  This fall she will be completing her third and final year at Chapman University School of Law where she currently serves as the Vietnamese American Student Law Association President.