Few have taken Vietnam's previous pledges to eradicate prostitution seriously, but new legislation could result in state employees caught with their pants down finding themselves in an unfamiliar and embarrassing position.
Under the new decree that came into force on July 1, the names of all civil servants, military and police personnel found to have frequented the services of a lady of the night will be passed on to their superiors for punishment.
In a country with 1.3 million state employees, civil servants account for 60 percent of prostitutes' customers, according to official figures.
PHOTO: AFP
"It is the first official decree on this matter and it is aimed at people who pay for sexual services and work in the public sector," said Vu Ngoc Thuy of the National Committee for the Progress of Women.
Those caught in the uncompromising act will face fines of between US$15 and US$250 and be barred from promotion for a given period. Repeat offenders risk suspension.
Previously, state employees were fined a token amount of money and given a "warning" in the name of "safeguarding cultural traditions and maintaining social order."
In a forerunner of the new decree, authorities in the southern province of Can Tho published in July last year in the state-controlled press a list of 20 state employees who frequented houses of pleasure.
Last month's vote on the new legislation by the National Assembly, Vietnam's parliament, triggered much debate, in particular on the disclosure of the names of the culprits.
Perhaps aware that they themselves could fall foul of the law, deputies also discussed the dilemma of combating this "social evil" while protecting the dignity of state employees and the state of their marital relations.
After lengthy discussions, they eventually agreed that the names of offenders should not be passed on to their families, only to their bosses.
In line with the communist tradition of pinning dates and statistics on everything, the government has earmarked 2005 as the target date by which the phenomenon of state employees engaging the services of prostitutes will be brought under control.
But their objective is likely to be difficult to achieve given that prostitution is a long-established part of the culture in Vietnam.
Hair salons, karaoke bars and massage parlors offering "additional services" are abundant in the political capital Hanoi, as they are in other cities across the country.
State employees often celebrate national festivals and success at work with an evening out on the town, which usually involves copious quantities of alcohol, a slap-up feast and an evening in a karaoke bar followed by further "after hours" entertainment.
"The purchase of the sexual services by public sector employees is rather widespread," said Nguyen Thi Hue from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, who is leading the anti-prostitution drive.
"It will prove very difficult to know the names, addresses and the exact places of work of the civil servants affected by these sanctions because they will provide false information or say they have forgotten their papers."
Hue also admitted that the annual budget of US$1.5 million for implementing the legislation was "very insufficient."
Nguyen Ngoc Lan, manager of a Hanoi mini-hotel -- the favored place for illicit bedroom entertainment -- is sceptical that the decree will curtail the trade.
"The benefits brought by the sex industry are too important," she said. "What's more you cannot settle personal matters with administrative measures."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema