The NGO Blue Dragon has installed 108 solar-powered lights to help improve safety and prevent trafficking in northwestern Vietnam. The organisation worked with communities to install the lights in three districts of Vietnam’s Dien Bien province from May 2023 until March 2024.
According to the US State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, Vietnam’s government identified 255 trafficking victims in 2022, 195 of which were labour trafficking victims and 14 who were victims of sexual exploitation. tripod lamp
Children and young people from deprived and impoverished backgrounds are particularly vulnerable to trafficking, found a 2019 survey, which notes that an estimated 5.6 per cent of children in Vietnam may have experiences related to trafficking.
Dien Bien’s poverty rate is 34.5 per cent, making it one of Vietnam’s poorest provinces. With a population of nearly 635,000, It is home to many disadvantaged ethnic minorities such as Thai, Koh Mhu, and Hmong communities.
Bordering Laos and China, Dien Bien is mountainous and remote, with some villages unconnected to the national power grid. Traffickers sometimes exploit Dien Bien’s poor lighting, targeting victims in the dark. Blue Dragon’s media relations lead, Carlota Torres, told FairPlanet that many children in the province walk through steep, winding dirt trails to get to school, and by the time they reach home, it’s already dark.
This, she said, poses many risks for children, especially girls. There are boarding schools in the area. However, these schools often require students to stay there, such as living at least 7 kilometres away from the school. Due to the safety risks and difficulties in their commute, some children stop attending school.
The light installation project was a significant community effort to tackle this issue. Blue Dragon staff worked with around 250 villagers and 50 youth union members to install the lights near schools and in residential areas of three districts. The team installed nine lights in Tuan Giao, 23 in Muong Ang, and 76 in Dien Bien Dong.
An anti-trafficking board set up by the organisation reported that the lights have already appeared to help prevent a trafficking crime in one commune from happening. A group of four men, the board said, arrived in the village, presumably intending to traffic a young woman they approached on the street into a forced marriage.
“The board said this was all happening on the street where we’d recently installed the lights, so a neighbour saw what was happening and alerted the police. All four men were escorted out of the village by the police, and the young woman didn’t suffer any harm in the end,” Torres relayed.
In addition to installing the lights, Blue Dragon has taken other measures to encourage children in Dien Bien to return to school. Torres said the organisation works with teachers to visit the homes of students who have stopped attending class. Blue Dragon learns about each family’s specific struggles to help them through these visits. Assistance includes providing students with books, uniforms, backpacks, money for boarding, and bicycles to ease school commutes. The organisation also helps parents develop stable incomes by starting house farms or small businesses.
night light bulbs In the past year, Blue Dragon has helped 193 children in Dien Bien return to school, 63 of whom are from communities where the lights were installed.