Aid to Children Without Parents, Inc.

P.O. Box 21066, San Jose, CA 95151. USA

main: (408) 225-8302, fax: (408) 281-7140

web: http://www.acwp.org; email: exec@acwp.org

Child sex trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes against helpless children around the world. It’s about children as young as five being forced into having sex with grown men! It’s about children born into poverty and sold for sex by their own families/guardians. It’s about a society that abuses children for their own pleasure and leave them to die.

Although Vietnam has partially recovered from the war, it’s still a country that struggle in many aspects. Many of the average citizens strive for an opportunity to build a better life for their children. Unfortunately, that opportunity doesn’t present itself to everyone. Most families, particularly in the remote areas of Southern Vietnam, are at the extreme level of poverty. This living condition has been passed down to them from one generation to the next. Due to daily survival and lack of education, families sometime are compelled into doing the forbidden. Thus, this is where tragedy and abuse come forcefully into the lives of the young and the innocent.

In recent years, the horrific crime of “child trafficking” has surfaced in our motherland and continues to grow rapidly. Project Ngoc Lan is an attempt to prevent the crime from spreading and to help those abused children who have been rescued from the world of adult prostitution. The project started in Los Angeles in 2003 by a few individuals who acted from their hearts upon learning of such crime. The project has continued to this day with the partnership of ACWP (Aid to Children Without Parents), who will assist extensively in providing and in creating the right programs to respond and to help families and children in crisis.

Ngoc Lan is a name of a beautiful flower that’s often used by artists to symbolize beauty and grace. The project was named Ngoc Lan as a metaphor to compare the children to this amazing flower that once flourished but is now decayed from all the pain and suffering that has been placed upon them.

Most of the children Project Ngoc Lan target to help range from 5 years old to 14 years old. They come from extremely poor families in remote areas along the border of Cambodia and Southern Vietnam. Such locations include An Giang, Song Be, Kien Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City. In addition, there’s a small village in Cambodia called Nam Vang which consist of Vietnamese people only. The families in this village have migrated to Cambodia in search of work to support their families. Sadly, some of their desperate attempts include selling their own children to prostitution.

The three main cases in which the children become victims of child trafficking are:

Extreme poverty - the parents/guardians sell their own children for a few hundred dollars.

Extreme poverty - the children are tricked and lured into thinking they will work for a coffee shop but instead they are sold into brothels to become sex slaves to grown men (included are American tourists according Dateline NBC investigations).

The children are kidnapped by sexual predators and become commodities to exchange for cash.

Once the children are placed in the brothels, they are often beaten and sold from one brothel to the next. They fear for their lives and live day-by-day, not knowing if they will ever see their families again. Despite the hardships they have to endure, the children might not live to celebrate their 18th or 21st birthday due to all the illness and disease that develop in their line of work. Tragically, the beginning of what most people call “life” is the ending for these abused children.

Helping the Vietnamese children of sex trafficking is both a short-term and a long-term commitment by ACWP and Project Ngoc Lan. However, due to the urgency of current situations, the following projects need immediate assistance.

After just a few years of prostitution life, some of the children become very ill and are no longer useful to their pimps. They are either sent back home or sent to a remote area to avoid contact with the outside world. These children have sadly become victims of deadly sexual diseases, such as Aids.

The “Wish List” project is to provide the dying children their last wish. Some of these wishes are as simple as a small equipment to repair bicycles (va banh xe dap) or just a basket to sell merchandise on the street (ganh hang rong). Because life has been so hard on them, dreaming of bigger things would have never crossed their minds. Even with your smallest donation, you will be able to grant a dying a child his/her last wish.

a. As indicated above, there’s a Vietnamese Village (Lang Viet Nam trong Nam Vang) in Cambodia that’s in critical need of financial assistance. This village has many Vietnamese children that will be sold into prostitution if they don’t get help soon. Having little or no money, the families struggle to survive and they are treading on very thin ice. The funds will go to assist any families who are on the verge of selling their children. The funds can help them start a small investment such as purchasing cows, ducks, chickens, and other practical means of earning a living. We have a contact person in Nam Vang who will assess each family’s situation case-by-case before providing any assistance.

b. The village has 2 small classrooms that operate off and on depending on the financial availability of 2 volunteers, a Father and a Buddhist monk. If there are sufficient funds to support the classrooms, the children can go to class and learn how to read and how to write as well as stay out of troubles. A small portion of the funds will also be provided to the children’s families; in return, the family can afford for their children to stay in class. Our goal is to expand the classrooms into an official school to provide an education for the children to secure their future.

As mentioned, along the border of Cambodia and Southern Vietnam, there are several small villages that are prone to become victims of trafficking. In order to help the children in these villages, we have to act now! Creating a “hotline” booth is one of the quickest ways to provide financial assistance to families with immediate need. We plan to set up a booth in each village and lend money interest free with the condition that their children have to be in school through our programs. Again, our representative in Vietnam will evaluate case-by-case the situation of each family. Once the program is in place and generates good results, other families will know that such alternative help does exist and that they do not have to sacrifice their children for a few hundred dollars.

Another goal of the hotline booths is to find jobs for the children. Details of this portion will be in our long-term goals and we will provide information as the plan progresses.

Child sex trafficking is very dear to everyone’s heart, especially to our Vietnamese community in the bay area. Everyone wants to help, but how? The “Concert of Love” or “Hat Cho Tre Em Bi Nan” is one of the ways our community can come together to support the issue. We will have a total of 4 concerts. The locations include San Jose, Los Angeles, Houston, and Washington. Due to the urgency in raising funds to support our projects in the short term and the long term, the concerts will take place this summer in 2004. Details will be provided as our plan progresses. Please come to support our children and to voice your concern with the community. We welcome any donations in advance to plan for the concerts. All donations and proceeds will go directly to Project Ngoc Lan to help the children of trafficking in Vietnam.

Some children were fortunate and have been rescued from the brothels. They are usually placed in temporary shelters after the rescue. Because of limited resources, most shelters do not provide long-term commitments to the children. According to statistics, it’s even tougher to keep the children from going back to prostitution life once they’re out of the shelters. ACWP and Project Ngoc Lan plan to provide long-term programs to keep the children and to secure their future. Thus, by having such programs, the children and their families will have a chance to fight for a new beginning.

The goals of our long-term projects are to provide an education and to provide professional skills to the children so they can get better pay in the workplace and assume a more active role in society. The sooner we create the programs, the sooner the children will see the results in themselves. By acting early, the children will have a healthy childhood, which will lead them to a productive and a rewarding adult life. Also, we would save the children from heading toward desperate situations in which their risks of being sold to pimps and sexual predators become increasingly high.

The purpose of the vocational/training programs is to provide the children practical tools and materials in learning specific skills so they can market themselves in the real working world. Most of the children of poverty are very motivated and hard working. Because they lack education and skills, no one is willing to give them an opportunity for advancement. Our programs will include training and working for USA companies located in Vietnam, such as Nike Shoe Company, Electronic assembly companies, and Art and Crafts factories. The children will be at these companies as interns until they’ve developed sufficient skills to find other related jobs. At the same time, they will get pay a fair salary to help out their families back home.

We have volunteers in Vietnam who will assist us in the process of opening restaurants and bakery shops in the Southern region of the country. As mentioned, this region includes bordering villages that are highly susceptible to child trafficking crime. The children will be taught good customer service skills, cooking skills at restaurants, and different baking skills at bakery shops. The benefits of having these types of skills are highly in demand, since Vietnam has become one of the tourist attractions in the world. Having these skills are practical; the children will be able to find work in the tourism industry such as “high class” restaurants and hotels. Again, similar to the program above, the children will receive some financial assistance to help out their families back home.

Having an education will increase the children’s chance of survival in Vietnam. After their daily work in the training programs mentioned above, the children will be given an opportunity to study each night, learning both Vietnamese and English. This project requires commitment from the children and from the Project Ngoc Lan. Any supporters of this project are welcome to sponsor each child in the program to pay for the annual education expenses.

ACWP has been working with international organizations to promote awareness and to seek out ways to prevent child trafficking. Some of these organizations provide shelter to the Vietnamese children after they’ve been rescued from the brothels. We will continue to work with such organizations in hopes that we will track down the Vietnamese children and bring them home to their families/guardians. We also plan to place the children in our programs to provide them safety, comfort, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Maintaining all projects and programs that are created for the children is critical in achieving our long-term goals. With your continuous support and generosity, we will be able to provide the children the assistance they so desperately need.

ACWP and Project Ngoc Lan will collaborate both in the short term and the long term to help the Vietnamese children of sex trafficking. Together, our commitments are to help prevent the crime, to provide financial assistance to the families and the children in crisis, to create practical programs that will empower the children’s future, and to continue to raise awareness to our community and to the American people at large so that we can stand united to fight the issue.

Please join us to help the children in Vietnam. Together, we can save a child’s life, one at a time.

ACWP (Aid to Children Without Parents), founded in 1988 in San Jose, California, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which provides humanitarian assistance to over 5,000 children annually in Vietnam through programs such as healthcare, education, social services, and emergency relief. In its 16 years of operation, ACWP has achieved a first-class reputation in the Asian-American community for our integrity as well as our successful execution of many humanitarian programs in Vietnam.

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On behalf of the children awaiting your assistance, we sincerely thank you for your support.

This page is hosted by Thiên-Lý Bửu-Tòa, a non-profit organization, with information provided by ACWP.