39 Deceased Vietnamese Citizens Found in Essex
The deceased bodies of 39 Vietnamese citizens were discovered Wednesday October 23 in the early hours of the morning in the refrigerated cargo hold of a lorry at Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, England. The discovery of human corpses as cargo has led to one of Britian’s largest mass murder probes.
Paramedics responded to a call made to Essex Ambulance Service by the driver of the lorry, Maurice Robinson, aged 25. The 31 men and 8 women, whose ages ranged from 15 to 44, were declared dead at the scene.The victims were originally believed to be from China, however the process of identifying bodies, in addition to public outcry from family members believing the deceased to be their relatives, led to the discovery that all victims hailed from Vietnam. It was determined with help from Vietnamese officials that the incident was part of a global trafficking operation turned tragic.This discovery is shocking but not surprising as adults and children from Vietnam were identified in a 2018 report as being “within the top three nationalities of those identified as potential victims of trafficking in the U.K.”
The same 2018 report identifies Vietnamese citizens as having a heightened vulnerability to human trafficking due to “socio-economic push and pull factors”. Supporting this, the 2017 U.N report on poverty in Vietnam stated that while “the national multidimensional poverty rate for Vietnam is 9.2%, the rate for ethnic minorities is 35.7%” with “rates for some groups higher than 80%.” A majority of the victims identified by Essex police hailed from the provinces of Ha Tinh, Nghe An, and Quang Binh - which are notable for their high levels of poverty. The U.K is viewed favorably by poor Vietnamese families as an opportunity to improve their financial circumstances. They seek to secure work abroad and send money, known as remittances, home. Remittance accounts for a large part of financial inflow to developing countries. The type of work sought is often low-skill and low-pay. This includes manual occupations, agriculture, seasonal work, restaurant work, or ownership of small business. Many Vietnamese migrants find work in the U.K in the drug production and the cannabis industry. The lack of legal protection and the fear of discovery means these Vietnamese nationals are particularly vulnerable to labor exploitation. The British National Crime Agency’s 2018 National Strategic Assessment report identified Vietnam as a major country from which migrants are smuggled for labor exploitation. The trip to the U.K can cost anywhere between $10,000 USD and $40,000 USD (£7,600 to £30,400). Many Vietnamese families are willing to pay higher amounts in order to secure “safer” travel, which typically involves plane travel. The cost is so high that many Vietnamese citizens spend years worth of their salary sending just one family member abroad. Common methods to raise this money are to take out loans, borrow from family, or raise money through selling property. A family member of one of the victims found in Essex stated the family had taken out a large loan to pay smugglers.
The most common transit countries smugglers use when bringing migrants out of Vietnam are reported to be China, Russia, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and France. Some of these countries were also reported as the most commonly identified countries in 2017 in which Vietnamese migrants en route to the U.K. experienced sexual and labor exploitation and modern day slavery. The penultimate destination is usually France where migrants are loaded in the back of lorries or on ferries and transported across the ocean. In the case of the Essex lorry, several countries have been implicated and the investigation has spanned across the U.K, Belgium, China, Vietnam, and Bulgaria. The refrigerated container trailer was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, however the foreign minister for Bulgaria, Mr. Boyko Borissov, clarified it belonged to an Irish-owned company, GTR Trailer Rental Solutions. The lorry had been leased out by the company. The container traveled around Calais in France and Dunkirk, Bruges, and Lille in Belgium. These areas, especially Dunkirk, Belgium, are known for the large number of smugglers operating out of the area. The container ultimately landed in Essex in the U.K from Zeebrugge, Belgium. There, it was collected by Mr. Robinson in a trailer driven from Ireland. So far U.K police have arrested the driver Maurice Robinson, a 22 year old man Eamonn Harrison, and three others on charges of manslaughter and human trafficking. Vietnamese police have made eight arrests.
The horrifying incident highlights how the U.K government is failing victims of human trafficking. One important problem is that there is no accurate baseline count of the number of victims of human trafficking in the country. Many victims are never identified or inaccurately identified. Those who are identified as possible victims of trafficking and entered into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) - the mechanism for identifying victims of human trafficking and ensuring they receive protection - wait for months or sometimes years for a decision on their cases. Often there is no proper procedure for evidence collection and evidence provided by victims in interviews is not methodically compared for information that could lead to prosecutions of the individuals running the trafficking networks. Human trafficking is treated as a social issue rather than an event of organized crime, and there are insufficient physical resources to preventing the smuggling of humans across borders. Victims are referred to the Home Office staff, who focus on immigration over crime. When police do not record NRM reports as crimes, then investigations can not be launched. As a result, there have been very few convictions of those smuggling migrants into the UK and exploiting them for forced labour. Migrant workers who are found on cannabis farms and nail salons are often treated as criminals rather than victims of exploitation, making many hesitant to come forward. This, coupled with the fact that agencies in places like the U.K and Vietnam fail to align their operational priorities across country borders, means that many victims suffer unnoticed as criminal activity operating between country borders grows.
