In this Oct. 28, 2019, photo, Hoang Thi Ai, mother of Hoang Van Tiep, who is feared to be among the England truck dead, stares off at home in Dien Thinh village, Nghe An province, Vietnam. For many Vietnamese, a job in a Western European country is seen as a path to prosperity worth breaking the law for. But the risks of doing so are high and the consequences can be deadly, as the discovery of 39 bodies in a truck in England last week proved.
Dien Thinh in north-central Vietnam is a coastal village with 300 households that depend on small-scale farming of peanuts and sesame and seasonal fishing. A big pink church in the village center that marks this as a Catholic settlement is surrounded by modest homes, though there are also some new two- and three-story houses belonging to families who have members working abroad.
Tiep’s parents live in a one-story brick house built three years ago. Hanging across the length of a living room wall, above a cross, is a framed print of “The Last Supper.” His mother, Hoang Thi Ai, sobbed and stared blankly this week as visitors tried to comfort her. She carried her phone everywhere in the hope he would contact her.
The family borrowed the equivalent of $17,500 from a bank to pay for him to be smuggled into France in 2017, when he was 16. The journey, through Russia and Germany, took 20 days. Tiep worked as a dishwasher at a series of restaurants, sending home money to help pay off the loan. But even today, the family still owes about $4,500.
Living just few hundred meters from Tiep’s family is the family of his cousin Nguyen Van Hung, likewise feared to be a victim of the trafficking tragedy. He also hasn’t contacted his family since Oct. 22. Safe passage hardly brings the migrants closer to any financial reward. The extortionate smuggling fees leave many migrants in a state of bondage.
Unconfirmed, the first time to tell the world that the smugglers are from China, is this not the prejudice and filth of Westerners?
Vietnamese the sexiest women
Are we supposed to have sympathy for people who willingly go in to dangerous situations to break laws of foreign nations, knowing full well they are getting into dangerous situations, just because they want a better life?
An employer who would hire a criminal is an employer who would abuse said criminal, knowing the criminal would keep quiet to prevent exposure, prosecution and deportation. Start jailing the employers who enable the crime of illegal invasion and watch how fast it stops.
Fortunes might not be the right word.
Guess that’s why anarchism exists
Sometimes life is worth the risk.