Affective Economies in the Governance of Trafficking and Sex Work in Vietnam

Abstract

Since Vietnam's advances in “capitalist globalisation” in the late 1980s, it is argued to have become a source and destination country of trafficking in men, women and children. Considered a global problem, human trafficking draws together an array of national and international actors, governing logics and practices in its global governance. This article examines how, in the prevention of trafficking in women and children in Vietnam, a global neoliberal governance logic converged with socialism. Specifically, it focuses on one site where this can be seen playing out, namely in the attempt to prevent trafficking in women and children in the Mekong Delta area in the mid-2000s. The article draws particular attention to the affective economies at play in the discursive regimes of Vietnamese femininity deployed to prevent the trafficking of women and girls. It thereby complements a Foucauldian reading of governance with Ahmed's work on the cultural politics of emotions.

About the Author

Nadine Voelkner is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Groningen. Her current work revolves around understanding the medicalisation of security. She has published on forced migration, human security and health security as well as on critical security methods.

Notes

1. Human trafficking, according to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000), supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” Available: <http://www.osce.org/odihr/19223?download=true> (accessed 25 March 2014).

2. The influential “Trafficking in Persons Report” (TIP) describes itself as representing “an updated, global look at the nature and scope of trafficking in persons and the broad range of government actions to confront and eliminate it. … Worldwide, the report is used by international organizations, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations alike as a tool to examine where resources are most needed.” It is “the U.S. Government's principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.” Available: <http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/> (accessed 12 August 2013).

3. US Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) 2013″ (Washington, DC: USDS, 2013), p. 392.

4. UNIAP, “Siren Human Trafficking Data Sheet: Vietnam”, SIREN: Strategic Information Response Network, UNIAP: Phase III, Hanoi, Vietnam, November 2008 (V.1.0) (Bangkok: UNIAP, 2008), available: <http://www.no-trafficking.org/content/SIREN/SIREN_pdf/vietnam%20datasheet%20final%20november%202008.pdf> (accessed 6 February 2014).

5. There is no agreed definition for irregular migration. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines it as the “movement that takes place outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving countries.” IOM, “Key Migration Terms”, available: <http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-migration/key-migration-terms-1.html> (accessed 5 February 2014). Quote from Phil Marshall, “Globalization, Migration and Trafficking: Some Thoughts from the South-East Asian Region”, Paper presented at the Globalization Workshop, Kuala Lumpur, 8–10 May 2001, p. 10, available: <http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/marshall_uniap_mekong_2001_.pdf> (accessed 25 March 2014).

6. UNIAP, op. cit.

7. Annuska Derks, “Combating Trafficking in South-East Asia: A Review of Policy and Programme Responses”, IOM Migration Research Series (Geneva: IOM, 2000), p. 46.

8. Ibid., p. 46.

9. This article draws on field research carried out in Vietnam in 2008. The field research focused on tracing the implementation of the ILO IPEC project “Prevention of Trafficking in Children and Women at a Community Level in Cambodia and Viet Nam (RAS/02/P09/HSF)” from ILO headquarters in Bangkok to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Vi Thanh and Phung Hiep in Hau Giang province. The project was funded by the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security for a period of three years between May 2003 and April 2006.

10. See, e.g., Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College De France, 1978–79, trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

11. Sara Ahmed, “Affective Economies”, Social Text, Vol. 79 (2004), p. 117.

12. Ibid., p. 119.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., p. 128.

15. Leep Mathew Coen, “The Affective Production of Others: United States Policy Towards the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 45 (2010), p. 331 (emphasis added).

16. Tom Scott, Ngoc Ha Do, Van Buom Nguyen, Bich Diem Nguyen Thi and Thanh Ha Mai, “Report on a Rapid Assessment of the Situation of Migrant Children in Vietnam” (Hanoi, Vietnam: Save the Children UK, 2006), pp. 21–22.

17. Ibid., p. 22.

18. Dang Nguyen Anh, Cecilia Tacoli and Hoang Xuan Thanh, “Migration in Vietnam: A Review of Information on Current Trends and Patterns and Their Policy Implications”, Paper presented at the Regional Conference on Migration, Development and Pro Poor Policy Choices in Asia, Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 2003.

19. Scott et al., op. cit., p. 21.

20. Comparing life in Vietnam to life in the USA, Linh Dinh writes in the Literary Review: “A typical bia om has private rooms where a group of buddies can sit on a couch in front of a big screen TV to warble their favorite hits and oldies. Each man has a hostess to help him ease a tune along. A case of beer sits on the floor. [ … ] There are also ‘bida om’ (billiards and a hug) and ‘hot toc om’ (a haircut and a hug). An 18-year-old girl in my neighborhood decided she wanted to work at a hot toc om. She assumed, innocently enough, that all she had to do was rub her breasts against a man's whiskers as she gave him a haircut. She was required to do more than that and was fired after four days. ‘The place had six chairs. Three of these guys had their things out. One guy had two girls all over him. I was supposed to eat ice cream,’ she giggled. ‘And everyone was in the same room?’ ‘Yes’.” Linh Dinh, “Eight Postcards from Vietnam”, Literary Review, Vol. 45 (2002), pp. 812–822.

21. Thu-huong Nguyen-vo, The Ironies of Freedom: Sex, Culture, and Neoliberal Governance in Vietnam, Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2008), p. 24.

22. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), State of World Population 2006, a Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration (New York: UNFPA, 2006). Vietnamese legally migrating for work can subsequently end up in conditions of debt bondage. For example, the “Trafficking in Persons Report 2008” reported on 200 Vietnamese men and women recruited by Vietnamese state-run labour agencies for work in apparel factories in Jordan who were allegedly “subjected to conditions of fraudulent recruitment, debt bondage, unlawful confiscation of travel documents, confinement, and manipulation of employment terms for the purpose of forced labor at their worksite.” When workers began to strike and clashed with Jordanian police, they are said to have faced threats of retaliation by Vietnamese government officials and employment agency representatives. According to the “Trafficking in Persons Report,” there were no reported efforts by the Vietnamese government to consider any of the repatriated workers as possible victims of trafficking. US Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report” (Washington, DC: USDS, 2008), pp. 261–262.

23. Marshall, op. cit.

24. For more information on the commodification of international marriages in Vietnam, see Hong-zen Wang and Shu-ming Chang, “The Commodification of International Marriages: Cross-Border Marriage Business in Taiwan and Viet Nam”, International Migration, Vol. 40 (2002), pp. 93–116.

25. Marshall, op. cit., p. 8.

26. Ibid. See also Nguyen-vo, op. cit.

27. US Department of State, “Distinctions between Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking 2006”, available: <http://www.state.gov/m/ds/hstcenter/90434.htm> (accessed 14 October 2010).

28. Halle Rydstrom, “Sexual Desires and ‘Social Evils’: Young Women in Rural Vietnam”, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 13 (2006), p. 284.

29. Ibid.

30. Derks, op. cit., p. 46.

31. Nguyen-vo, op. cit., p. 45.

32. Ibid.

33. Chris Dixon and Andrea Kilgour, “State, Capital, and Resistance to Globalisation in the Vietnamese Transitional Economy”, Environment and Planning A, Vol. 34 (2002), p. 604.

34. Rydstrom, op. cit., p. 284.

35. Ramona Vijeyarasa, “The State, the Family and Language of ‘Social Evils’: Re-Stigmatising Victims of Trafficking in Vietnam”, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 12 (2010), p. 90.

36. As quoted in Nguyen-vo, op. cit., p. 117.

37. Nguyễn Du, The Kim Van Kieu, trans. Vladislav Zhukov (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2004), p. 34.

38. Joanna Busza, “Sex Work and Migration: The Dangers of Oversimplification—a Case Study of Vietnamese Women in Cambodia”, Health and Human Rights, Vol. 7 (2004), pp. 231–249.

39. Vijeyarasa, op. cit.

40. Derks, op. cit., p. 46.

41. Interviews in Bangkok, September 2008, and Hanoi, October 2008. Vietnam became the WTO's 150th member on 11 January 2007.

42. ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal: Prevention of Trafficking in Children and Women at a Community Level in Cambodia and Viet Nam” (Ras/02/P09/HSF), 2002, p. ii.

43. Ibid., p. 3.

44. Ibid., p. i.

45. Ibid., p. ii.

46. Ruth Bowen, Prom Tevy and Tran Minh Gioi, “Final Evaluation Report: Prevention of Trafficking in Children and Women at a Community Level in Cambodia and Vietnam” (Hanoi: ILO-IPEC Design, Evaluation and Documentation Section [DED], 2006), p. 2.

47. ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal”, op. cit., p. 12.

48. Ibid., p. 12.

49. Ibid., p. 13.

50. At the turn of the millennium, Vietnam drew mainly on three expert intergovernmental organisations operating across the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) on the issue of human trafficking. Most influential in this respect has been the IOM, which has been active in Vietnam since the late 1980s. The IOM's promotion of the management of migration flows within the Mekong Subregion has been the precursor for more extensive collaboration between the five countries in the Subregion. Building on this, the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), established in 2000, sets out to facilitate a stronger and more coordinated response to trafficking in the GMS and beyond. It pools the expertise and efforts of several UN agencies including the IOM, ILO and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and disseminates this through its regional office in Bangkok to country project offices in the capitals of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. By 2008, the UNIAP had managed to spin a web of collaboration on countering human trafficking anchored at key country nodal points, bringing together senior government officials including police, border guards, women's organisations, NGO and IGO officials, of five GMS countries across the GMS. Simultaneously, between 2000 and 2008, the ILO together with the IPEC, was engaged in the region promoting the perspective that human trafficking is a labour issue.

51. Julia O'Connell Davidson, “Guest Editorial: Trafficking, Modern Slavery and the Human Security Agenda”, Human Security Journal, Vol. 6 (2008), p. 9.

52. Christina Schwenkel and Ann Marie Leshkowich, “Guest Editor's Introduction: How Is Neoliberalism Good to Think Vietnam? How Is Vietnam Good to Think Neoliberalism?”, Positions, Vol. 20 (2012), p. 387.

53. Derks, op. cit., p. 46.

54. Kay Johnson, “Social Evil Sells”, Time, 5 May 2003; Nguyen-vo, op. cit., p. 215.

55. Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, “Decision of the Prime Minister. Approval of the National Plan of Action against Crime of Trafficking in Children and Women During the Period of 2004-2010”, The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, document no. 130/2004/QD-TTg, 14 July 2004, available: <ftp://ftp2.allianceantitrafic.org/alliancea/001%20%20Vietnam/NationalPlanofActionVN.pdf> (accessed 25 March 2014).

56. The analysis in this section is based on field research conducted in multiple locations in Hau Giang province in October 2008.

57. Hau Giang province lies 240 kilometres south of Ho Chi Minh City in the centre of the Mekong Delta. The province is divided into five districts, including Phung Hiep, and one provincial town, Vi Thanh. The majority of Hau Giang residents belong to the mainstream Kinh ethnic group. Four-fifths of Hau Giang residents depend on rice farming to generate income. Less than 20% of the population is engaged in small-scale industries, trade or services. Christina Cacioppo, “Can Tho City, Hau Giang Province, and Tay Ninh Province in Southern Viet Nam. The Situation of Migration and Trafficking of Children and Women: A Rapid Assessment”, ILO/IPEC, 2006.

58. VWU, “Basic Information on Vietnam Women's Union”, 2014, available: <http://hoilhpn.org.vn/newsdetail.asp?CatId=66&NewsId=819&lang=EN> (accessed 5 February 2014).

59. Ibid.

60. Propaganda in Vietnamese does not carry the same negative connotations as in other places. Interview with VWU members of Vi Thanh Town in Hau Giang province, 7 October 2008.

61. Interview with VWU official in Hanoi, October 2008. See also VWU, “Basic Information”, op. cit.

62. Interview with VWU officials in Vi Thang Town, Hau Giang province, October 2008. See also Nguyen-vo, op. cit.

63. The regular chatter of the governmental loudspeaker across rice paddies or in the busy centre of Hanoi is a traditional IEC technique, keeping people abreast of latest propaganda subjects. People hear but do they listen? Interview with VWU officials at VWU headquarters in Hanoi, October 2008. See also ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal”, op. cit., p. ii.

64. Interviews with VWU officials in various locations at district and village level, Hau Giang province, October 2008.

65. Interviews with members of the Phung Hiep Commune Steering Committee, head teacher and pupils of a commune school, Hau Giang Province, October 2008.

66. Bowen et al., op. cit.

67. Indeed, according to the evaluation report of the project, commune leaders believe that community awareness of the risks of exploitation facing migrants has improved. Local people have become more alert to recruiters and have changed their practices when they consider migrating to other provinces or abroad.

68. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979).

69. VWU, “Goals of the Women's Movement in 2007–2012”, 2009, available: <http://www.hoilhpn.org.vn/newsdetail.asp?CatId=78&NewsId=10103&lang=EN> (accessed 5 February 2014).

70. From a 2006 VWU leaflet distributed to local communities, made available to this researcher during a field visit in 2008.

71. ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal”, op. cit., p. 32.

72. As quoted in Nguyen-vo, op. cit., p. 137.

73. Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, op. cit., p. 7.

74. Interview with WVU officials, Hau Giang Province, 10 October 2008.

75. Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, op. cit., p. 4.

76. ILO/IPEC, “Meeting the Challenge: Proven Practices for Human Trafficking Prevention in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region”, Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (Bangkok: ILO/IPEC, 2008).

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid., p. 13.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid., p. 20.

81. ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal”, op. cit., p. ii.

82. Ibid., p. iii.

83. Bowen et al., op. cit., p. 27.

84. Ibid.

85. ILO/IPEC, “Project Proposal”, op. cit., p. i.

86. See, e.g., Ashley Pettus, Between Sacrifice and Desire: National Identity and the Governing of Femininity in Vietnam, East Asia History, Politics, Sociology, Culture (London: Routledge, 2003).

87. For a general authoritative critique, see Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: Sage, 1997).

88. George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York: Howard Fertig, 1997).

89. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

90. Nguyen-vo, op. cit.; Pettus, op. cit.

91. Pettus, op. cit., p. 7.

92. Ibid., p. 7.

93. Ibid., p. 8.

94. Ibid., p. 9.

95. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

96. Nguyen-vo, op. cit., p. 48.

97. Ibid., p. 3.

98. Ibid., p. 48.

99. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 110.