Bar ôm, Bia ôm, Cà-phê ôm...
C'est une institution vietnamienne. Il s'agit des cafés avec hôtesses. Avec l'ouverture du pays, ils ont tendance à proliférer. A éviter, si vous ne voulez pas vous ruiner et vous sentir très vite piégés par des Vietnamiennes certes mignonnes et tentantes, mais toujours vénales et intéressées par votre argent. C'est très simple : dans un cà-phê ôm, il y a la partie visible, et l'autre partie cachée le plus souvent par une cloison ou par un paravent. Le client entre, s'assied, commande une bière. Une hôtesse s'occupe aussitôt du nouveau venu, se rapproche de lui, engage la conversation. Si le client est d'accord, le feuilleton peut se poursuivre derrière le paravent, à l'abri des regards indiscrets et dans une relative pénombre. Tout s'arrête au stade du flirt et du petting. Ça dure le temps qu'on veut. Pour aller plus loin, le brave pigeon ainsi enlacé doit encore payer. Mais cette fois, s'il veut goûter au fruit défendu, il lui faudra de toute façon (sauf exception très rare) changer d'auberge. Car la prostitution est interdite et très sévèrement réprimée. Bonjour le SIDA.
1954. Six mois après l'instauration du régime, on a proclamé hautement dans les journaux, à la radiodiffusion, dans les réunions, la liquidation de la prostitution, introduite au Viêt-Nam, affirmait-on, par les colonialistes. Les professionnelles avaient fait l'objet des soins attentifs du gouvernement, continuait la propagande, on les avait groupées et traitées avec douceur; on leur avait permis de gagner honorablement leur vie, une fois qu'elles avaient reconnu leur "erreur". Tout cela avait dû être assez facile, car la plupart de ces "dames" avaient d'elles-mêmes fort bien compris qu'avec le nouveau régime, le métier ne rapporterait plus; elles étaient parties en masse pour le Sud. Celles qui étaient restées durent aisément se laisser convaincre de choisir une carrière plus lucrative pour le moment et surtout de rentrer dans les bonnes grâces des dirigeants. C'est ainsi que certaines furent citées en exemple comme ouvrières modèles, héroines de l'émulation, dépassant largement les normes. Cependant, si comme on veut bien nous le faire croire, les prostituées se seraient évanouies, la prostitution quant à elle depuis 3 ans a repris plus belle. Les can-bô eux mêmes sont forcés de reconnaître; ils admettent qu'on ferme les yeux, car il y a tellement de Résistants du Nam-bô, qui contribuent à cette renaissance ! Ils sont montés au Nord le plus souvent célibataires et ceux qui sont mariés sans leur famille; or ils ne peuvent avec les nouvelles lois prendre épouse du deuxième rang, "comme du temps des féodaux"; comment alors résoudre ce grave problème ? La police fait bien des rondes nocturnes dans les hôtels de la capitale, qui ont été transformés en logements pour les can-bô, et ses agents amènent emmènent en prison les femmes, qu'ils y trouvent clandestinement, si celles-ci ne partagent pas le lit d'un can-bô trop haut placé et qui ne doit pas être compromis. Certains soirs, n'ayant plus de place "à l'ombre" pour toutes ces femmes, les lieux étant déjà pleins à craquer, les agents renoncent à faire des arrestations....Ce qu'il y a de plus grave, c'est que la prostitution n'est plus pratiquée comme autrefois presque exclusivement par les professionnelles, mais aussi et surtout par de braves filles de la campagne. Elles y sont poussées par l'extrême misère, dans laquelle elles vivent, et les drames effroyables, que connaissent leurs familles. Venues à la ville pour vendre quelques légumes ou volailles, elles voient la possibilité de réaliser en une nuit une somme suffisante soit pour acheter le lendemain au "mâu dich" quelques mètres de tissus pour leurs parents en haillons, soit des médicaments indispensables mais tellement chers, soit quelque ustensile de cuisine absolument nécessaire, ou bien encore elles y trouvent le moyen de rapporter la modeste somme de 2,000 dôngs, qui leur permettra de nourrir la famille pendant quelques jours ou tout simplement de payer les frais du voyage de retour, car elles n'avaient pas prévu que sur les ventes, qu'elles étaient venues faire en ville, les taxes à verser au contrôle économique réduiraient à zéro le bénéfice réalisé. La hantise de la famine est si forte que certaines sont prêtes à tout pour y échapper.
Il y a aussi les can-bô tout puissants dans les villages, qui menacent de faire abus de leur pouvoir, si la femme, sur laquelle ils ont jeté leur dévolu, a le malheur de repousser leurs avances. On en a déjà tant vu et tant subi dans ces malheureux villages, que devant ces nouveaux maîtres, on tremble; on voit déjà le mari ou le père arraché du foyer sous n'importe quel prétexte mensonger et partir pour une destination inconnue. Alors, contrainte ou forcée, on cède à la force brutale.
Health-Vietnam-AIDS: More than half of Hanoi prostitutes HIV positive: government survey
Agence France-Presse - March 13, 2002
HANOI, March 13 (AFP) - More than half of registered prostitutes in the Vietnamese capital now carry the AIDS virus following a huge surge of infection in the communist state's large sex industry, a government survey suggested Wednesday.
Infection rates at the capital's Social Support Centre Number Two, a home for women with repeat convictions for solliciting, reached 55.4 percent in 2001 against 39.2 percent the previous year, the labour and social affairs ministry survey showed.
The infection rates for Hanoi were even higher than those for Ho Chi Minh City, normally regarded as the country's vice centre, the survey results carried by the police daily Cong An Nhan Dan (People's Police) suggested.
In the commercial capital's Thu Duc Women's Education Centre, the survey found that 24 percent of prostitutes were HIV positive against 21 percent at the 05 Centre in the northern port city of Haiphong.
Across Vietnam's big cities infection rates among registered prostitutes saw an increase of 18.4 percent on 2000.
The survey results seemed to contradict suggestions by some aid workers that intravenous drugs use remained the primary means of transmission of the AIDS virus in Vietnam, even among prostitutes.
Prostitutes who were also heroin users accounted for just 11.3 percent of the HIV infections in Hanoi, although the proportion rose to 18 percent in Ho Chi Minh City.
The figures were the latest in a series of surveys to suggest an explosion of HIV infection in Vietnam's sex and hospitality industry.
A nationwide study published by the labour and social affairs ministry in March last year found that infection among prostitutes had leapt from 2.8 percent in 1998 to 21.6 percent in 2000.
Western donors have expressed mounting alarm about the potential for HIV infection to spread from prostitutes into the general population and Washington announced six millions dollars in assistance for AIDS prevention here in November 2000.
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VIETNAM
Estimates: Between 60,000 and 200,000 women and girls in prostitution, with 6.3% under the age of 16.
Trafficking happens through kidnapping for brothels, deceptive offers for jobs or tourist trips and marriage matchmaking with foreigners who sell and resell the women abroad.
Organized tours of Taiwanese men come to buy brides for US$3,000.
Appendix
Nature and Extent of the Problem
In Vietnam, there are various definitions of children, but children are mostly defined as those being under 16 years of age. Children under 15 years of age are seen as labourers when they can be used in some jobs according to a fixed list by MOLISA. The concept of under age people, according to the labour law, applies to those under 18 years of age. The 1995 CPCC report indicated that countrywide there were 16,000 street children, of which 13,000 were working to earn a living in service premises and small enterprises but the 1997 UNICEF’s estimation suggested the figure of 50,000 street children. According to another statistic, 10 per cent of Vietnamese children aged 6-14 are illiterate, which is another factor pushing children onto the streets. The market economy is another factor increasing child labour because the gap between the rich and the poor is getting larger and children can easily find a job.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO) in Vietnam, about 10.5 per cent of the total of 200,000 prostitutes in Vietnam are child prostitutes under 18 years of age, but the estimated proportion of child prostitutes varies from 5.5 per cent to 20.8 per cent depending on the area, source and date of the estimate. Most estimates show that the proportion of child prostitutes in Vietnam has dramatically and alarmingly increased since 1990.
Although there are no organisations having accurate data on the number of victims of women and children trafficking in Vietnam, The Frontier Forces found that of 126 trafficking cases in 1994-1996, 14.2 per cent were adolescents and 77.3 per cent were women aged 17 to 25. Another indication is that a report of a visit to Phnom Penh in 1997 indicated that in the 50 brothels in the Sky Park area there were from 800 to 1000 Vietnamese girls aged from 13 to 22. The same report estimated that there were 3000 Vietnamese prostitutes in Phnom Penh and another document from UNICEF (1997) indicated that there were 6000 Vietnamese prostitutes in Cambodia. A report from the Centre for the Protection of the Rights of the Child in Cambodia indicated that, of the 14,725 prostitutes in 22 provinces and 64 districts in Cambodia, 2,291 were children of age from 9 to 15 years (78 per cent were Vietnamese and 22 per cent were Cambodian). These data give an indication of the seriousness of the problem of the women and children trafficking from Vietnam and show that the trend is alarmingly increasing.
VIETNAM - FACTS ON PROSTITUTION
Thousands of Vietnamese women are trafficked through the Vietnam-China border by illegal organizers who take them to Cambodia and from there to neighboring countries for prostitution purposes. Vietnamese pimps pretend to court village girls to bring them to the city, and then sell them to brothels. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Vietnamese traffickers sell hundreds of women and children each year in Europe, China, Cambodia and Macau, for prostitution and arranged marriages. ("EU wants more cooperation with Vietnam to end trafficking women, drugs," AFP, 27 February 1998)
Prostituted girls, most of them aged 15 to18 years of age, are found in the Svay Pak red-light district of Cambodia. Many girls are much younger. Most of them are smuggled in from Vietnam and all are bound by contracts, which last from six months to over a year. Svay Pak has the largest number of prostituted Vietnamese girls. ("The Street of Little Flowers," rewritten from 'Children of the Dust,' by MIKEL FLAMM and NGO KIM CUC, Bangkok Post, 23 February 1997)
Traffickers have admitted to selling women and children for US$250-300 each. (Border Guard Leiutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hoa, "Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising," Associated Press, 24 April 1998)
Most women and children trafficked from Vietnam are taken to China and Cambodia, Victims are kidnapped for brothels by deceptive job offers or tourist trips, matchmaking with foreigners who often sell and resell the women abroad. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Marriages entered into by Vietnamese women with Taiwanese, Europeans, Americans and Thais have ended in, the woman being sold and resold in brothels by her "husband" upon arrival to the "husband's" nation. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Between September 1995 and March 1997, Vietnamese border guard forces uncovered 121 child trade cases, arresting 186 traffickers and freeing 281 victims including 31 under age 16. (Border Guard Leiutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hoa, "Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising," Associated Press, 24 April 1998)
There are 70,000 prostitutes in Vietnam - an old figure that seems far too low given the increasing number of new karaoke bars, massage parlors and discos known for prostitution. (government statistics Keith B. Richburg, "The Go-Go Dancers Haven't Gone," The Washington Post, 15 September 1997)
5% of prostitutes in Vietnam are children, which means that 20,000 children are in prostitution in Vietnam. This rose from 11% in 1991. (Christian Science Monitor, 21 May 1997)
From 1996-1997, 1,335 people have been arrested since police began a crackdown on prostitution. Ninety-four karaoke bars were shut down, and 500 others suspended. ("Vietnam Police Crack Down on Vice," Associated Press, 10 February 1998)
As high as two thirds of the Vietnamese government officials are known buyers of women in prostitution in, massage parlours, karaoke bars and brothels. Their activities are financed through government agency "slush funds." ("Vietnamese government officials biggest customers for prostitutes," Deutsche Press-Agentur, 2 March 1998)
Prostitution is becoming a feature of the burgeoning tourism industry: hotels and tourist companies providing women to male buyers. After Vietnam shifted to a market economy, prostitution became so integrated into trade relations that business deals are often closed with the use of women as incentive or reward to foreign investors, bureaucrats and corporate representatives. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
bar ôm (bar enlacer), bia ôm (bière enlacer), buom dêm (papillons de nuit), cà-phê buông (café chambre), cà-phê dèn mo (café à lumière voilée) : cà-phê không dèn (café sans lumière), cà-phê ôm (café enlacer), cho phân huong (marché des fards et parfums), cho tình (marché d'amour), chu chua (tenancier de bordel), di (fille de mauvaise vie, fille publique, garce, prostituee, garce), di diêm (prostituee), gai di, gai diêm, gai giang-hô (fille publique, fille des rues, garce, gueuse, prostituee), gai goi (call girl), gai nhay (girl, taxi-girl), hàng tuoi mat (marchandise fraiche), ka-ra-ô-kê, khach san (hôtel), mat-xoa, xoa bop (massage), ma-cô (barbeau, maquereau, marlou, proxénète, souteneur), nghê mai dâm (prostitution), nhà thô (bordel, maison close, maison de passe, maison de tolérance), phô hàng hoa (rue des marchandises fragiles), quan tro (guesthouse, pension), tam hoi (sauna), tam thuê (bain à louer), tiêp viên (hôtesse), tu bà (maquerelle), ...