Members of the Vietnamese community take life-threatening risks and make treacherous journeys to reach Europe. Known as the “VIP” route, illegal entries are carried out into the UK on flights using someone else’s passport or a doctored diplomatic one.
The report says, Young, aspirational and poor Vietnamese are risking their lives to travel to Europe, taking on large debts to join well-worn trafficking routes in the hope of better future thousands of miles away from their rural homes.
The dangers of illegal crossings into Europe were laid bare this week when 31 men and eight women were found dead in a refrigerated truck in Essex. British police initially said the victims were Chinese, but it is now feared most were from Vietnam.
Many Vietnamese migrants come from just a handful of central provinces, where smugglers prey on disaffected youth lured by the prospect of overseas work.
Underwhelmed by village life and a lack of opportunity, the allure of overseas riches is enough to tempt many to embark on the risky trips.
“One of the girls said she went from Vietnam to China and worked there for about a year and a half,” said one member of the community who was familiar with their cases and who added that they were unaware of last week’s tragedy, when 39 bodies were found in a back of a lorry in Grays, Essex.
“Then she went from China to Russia, where there was a holding place for people waiting to go further. From the holding place, a new journey would start about once a month. Her journey was divided into very different stages, and in every stage, she stayed with Vietnamese people.”
“Smugglers are really saying that the UK is the ‘El Dorado’,” Paris-based migration expert Nadia Sebtaoui told AFP.
“They really have a lack of awareness on the reality of working in Europe,” said Sebtaoui, adding that many take under-the-table jobs as manicurists or cannabis farmers, or even sex workers.