When construction started in 2019, the Linglong tire factory outside Belgrade was hailed as the crown jewel of the rapidly growing strategic partnership between Serbia and China.
Two years later, 500 Vietnamese construction workers were allegedly discovered last month Working under forced labor conditions, passports confiscated, and living in cramped and degrading conditions.
The case shocked Serbia, and the European Parliament demanded a reply Regarding how a major human trafficking case was apparently allowed to deteriorate in the center of Europe.
However, Linglong Factory is only a gateway to Britain and Europe For many workers in the factory.
One Observer The investigation found that Serbia and Romania It is being used as a new gateway to Europe for smuggling and trafficking groups that use the guest worker visa scheme to transport large numbers of Vietnamese workers to Eastern Europe. There, they are often used in factories and construction sites, and then some are transported to the land border into the European Union, and ultimately to the United Kingdom.
At all stages of the process, Vietnamese workers are very likely to fall into forced labor or debt bondage, and the cost of traveling to the UK is usually as high as £30,000.
In 2019, 39 Vietnamese immigrants died The danger that many people face when trying to reach the UK is highlighted in a truck container. Those who arrive safely are often forced to pay off their debts in nail salons, restaurants and bars. Hemp farm, The Vietnamese have become one of the largest groups of victims of modern slavery in the UK year after year.
Nusrat Uddin is a human trafficking expert at Wilson Solicitors LLP, who regularly serves victims of human trafficking and modern slavery in the United Kingdom.She said that many of her recent clients have flown to Serbia or Romania on work visas to start their journey: “Almost all [our clients were] Promises to provide decent work with fair wages, but the reality is far from the case. Many people then continue to travel across Europe, again under the false premise of better conditions elsewhere. “
According to interviews with Vietnamese workers, the immigration route from Vietnam to Serbia started operating in the summer. From August to October, more than 500 workers were flying with guest visas. The fee for each worker is approximately £1,700, which brings at least £850,000 in income for the recruitment agency to arrange visas, work and travel.
Tuan* saw an ad on Facebook promising to take a high-paying job in a German-owned tire factory and travel to Serbia from Vietnam on a guest worker visa. He finally arrived at Linglong.
“When I arrived, I found that the factory was basically buying Vietnamese workers, and when you got there, you had to follow their requirements,” he said.
They took his passport and told him that his salary was half the promised. He said he was forced to sleep in 50 rooms. He added: “Many of us are infected with Covid… We don’t even get any medicine.” “The water is bad, yellow, not drinkable, and sour. The food is also bad and not enough. Sometimes we go to the forest. In search of food, anything we can catch, like rabbits.”
Duan said that 30 of the people working with him at Linglong’s factory have left Serbia for the UK, France and Germany, and many more plan to go.
He said that since the tragedy of truck container deaths, new smuggling routes through Serbia and other Eastern European countries have become more popular.
“For those who want to go to the UK, it’s very cheap to go to Serbia first. The visa is only VND 50 million (£1,626), and those who die in the truck have to travel dangerous routes for months. So this choice is very good. easy.”
This ObserverThe investigation found that workers who continued from the Balkans to the European Union and the United Kingdom could take multiple routes. The smuggling network took Vietnamese across the border into Romania, and then to Slovakia, Germany and France. Then they waited in a makeshift camp for the opportunity to travel to England on an inflatable raft.
Mimi Vu, an anti-human trafficking expert living in Vietnam, has been studying the link between the bilateral visa program in Eastern Europe and the exploitation of Vietnamese migrant workers for the past few months.
“A key selling point of the Serbian route is that, like Romania, you can arrange legal immigration through a reciprocal visa for only a few thousand pounds. Compared to the more traditional route through Moscow, this is considered a cost-effective deal or a Polish Or one of the Central European countries such as the Czech Republic can be introduced into Europe, and the cost may be as high as £30,000,” she said.
“As far as Linglong Factory is concerned, people come here either because they are promised to work in a German factory or as a new Balkan gateway to the UK and Europe.”
Vu said that the exploitation that workers like Tuan face when they arrive in countries such as Serbia and Romania also provide a huge incentive for workers to try to move to Europe and the UK to find higher-paying jobs.
Debt is also the main driver of people trying to move.
This Observer I have seen Vietnamese recruitment agencies arranging paperwork for guest worker visas for Serbia, called “commitment not to evade form”. Workers must sign an agreement. If workers leave their jobs, their families must pay more than one year’s wages within a week.
“Most people who leave Vietnam have their family members who have raised the money to leave for them, and they feel that they can’t go back if they don’t pay off their debts,” Vu said. “So if they don’t get the income they promised in Serbia, then the promise of providing higher-paying jobs elsewhere is a huge motivation to leave.”
Duan said that many of the Vietnamese who he worked at Linglong had to raise thousands of dollars to pay for their entry into Europe.
“Some of the people who work in the factory with me have arranged to go to the UK before they arrive in Serbia,” he said. “I think they have to pay [smuggling gangs] About 6,000 pounds were shipped there from Romania. Smugglers will call family members in Vietnam to arrange withdrawals so that they can continue their journey. “
Although Serbia is considered a new landing point for criminal groups, Romania, which signed a bilateral visa agreement with Vietnam to fill the huge manual labor shortage in 2018, has become the entry point into Europe.
Many people also find themselves trapped in exploitative and dangerous jobs after arriving there.
Manh* arrived in Romania in 2019 with 60 other Vietnamese workers to work for a large construction company. By the end of his contract in 2021, half had crossed the border to the UK and Europe.
“Many people ran away only a month or two after arriving,” he said. Manh’s brother worked for another company in Romania and was one of many who left the country. “The salary in Romania is too low,” he said.
Manh said he is now trapped in Romania. His contract expired in March, and his employer refused to extend the contract, allowing him to work without a valid residence permit and unable to afford the airfare to return home.
When asked if there is a plan to leave Romania to find a job, he replied: “This is a secret.”
According to data from the Romanian Border Police, in the past five years, at least 231 Vietnamese were stopped while trying to cross the border into Europe. During the same period, the Hungarian police intercepted 101 more people. Experts like Vu estimate that this is only a small part of the Vietnamese who left Romania and entered Western Europe.
“As a new modus operandi, Vietnamese citizens legally entered Romania with a work visa, and were subsequently found trying to cross the border illegally on the way out,” said a spokesperson for the Romanian border police. Observer.
Social media plays a central role in smuggling gangs.Facebook groups visited Observer Provide “VIP” routes in private cars outside of Romania. The package is advertised with the dial code of the destination country, and buyers can choose the “44” package in the United Kingdom, the “49” package in Germany and the “33” package in France. Prices have fallen during the pandemic, but the cost of travel to the UK may still exceed £10,000.
The reality of these VIP trips is cruel.Vietnamese border police arrested immigrants trying to leave Romania illegally Hidden behind a fruit box or in a minivan “Fake Wall”.
In the past year, despite border restrictions caused by the pandemic, the smuggling of Vietnamese migrants from Romania has continued.
After working legally in Romania, Trung, 36, currently lives in Germany without a license and embarked on a journey during the European blockade in October 2020.
Trung wants to stay in Romania, but his employer refuses to update the paperwork that allows him to stay in the country legally. He said he was faced with the choice of paying for forgery or risking travel to Germany.
“The salary in Romania is only slightly higher than that in Vietnam,” Trang said, and Romanian employers pay him $750 a month. Trung knew the danger of traveling west, but he went anyway. “I believe in fate. Deciding to go is like playing cards: the probability of success is 50-50.”
However, for those trying to reach the UK, the danger is greater than the danger of going to France or Germany. No matter what VIP package they purchased to ensure safe passage, everyone must try to cross the strait in a fragile rubber boat.
“Historically, Vietnamese smugglers have their own network to help them take people to the UK in trucks, but after Brexit and the resulting shortage of drivers and container deaths in 2019, they had to switch to Non-government-controlled ship crossing points.-Vietnamese smugglers,” Vu said. “In my interviews with Vietnamese who arrived in Dunkirk refugee camp or crossed the English Channel to the UK, they all said that crossing the border by boat is the only option.”
She said the smugglers told the Vietnamese to stay away at the makeshift camp in Dunkirk, and then deliberately limited the number of Vietnamese they carried on each boat so that they were not so obvious among other ethnic groups.
Last week, it was revealed that one of the 27 people who drowned while trying to cross last month was a Vietnamese. media reports He was named Le Van Hau, from Nghe An Province, Vietnam. According to reports, he paid about £10,000 to find a legal job in Poland, and then immediately went to France to try to cross the strait.
Once in the UK, with thousands of pounds in debt, Vietnamese became one of the groups most likely to be trafficked into forced labor, debt bondage, and sexual exploitation. Official data of the Ministry of the Interior It shows that the Vietnamese are the third largest ethnic group identified as victims of modern slavery. In 2020, 653 Vietnamese were identified as victims of slavery, most of whom were found in cannabis farms and nail salons.
Last month, in a cold immigrant camp in Dunkirk, two young Vietnamese men huddled together to keep warm. They were one of a group of about 20 or 30 people scattered among hundreds of refugees in the tent wasteland. They said they had left their home in Vietnam due to the flood, and borrowed money from loan sharks to apply for a visa for Serbia in order to go to the UK to find a job in a nail salon. When they arrive in the UK, they will owe an additional £18,000.
“It took us two months to get here, but we can finally see the end,” said a FaceTime call with his wife and young children in Vietnam. “I don’t know when I can go home, I can’t go back empty-handed.”
* Name has been changed
