Peter Nguyen Van Hung (Vietnamese : Phêrô Nguyễn Văn Hùng; Chinese :阮文雄; pinyin :Ruǎn Wénxióng; born 1958) is a Vietnamese Australian Catholic priest and human rights activist in Taiwan. [1] He was recognized by the United States Department of State as a "hero acting to end modern day slavery". [2] [3] [4]
Peter Nguyen Van Hung grew up in a lower-middle-class family outside of Bình Tuy Province in South Vietnam, with two brothers and five sisters. His father was a fisherman, but died after a long battle with illness, forcing his mother, a devout Catholic with roots in the country's north, to become the family's main breadwinner. Peter Nguyen Van Hung himself followed in his mother's faith.
He left Vietnam in 1979 on an overcrowded boat; rescued by a Norwegian ship after just 36 hours and taken to Japan, he joined the Missionary Society of St. Columban upon his arrival there. [5]
He lived in Japan for three years, studying and taking a variety of jobs to support himself, including as a highway repairman, steel factory worker, and gravedigger. [6] He first came to Taiwan in 1988 as a missionary, after which he went to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to study at a seminary. He was ordained in 1991 [3] [5] and returned to Taiwan the following year (in 1992).
Peter Nguyen Van Hung established the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office in Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City) in 2004 to offer assistance to Vietnamese immigrants in Taiwan. Vietnamese American radio station Little Saigon Radio and others helped him to rent the second floor of a grammar school; two seventy square foot rooms offer sleeping space, while two others are used for office space. [7] They provide Mandarin classes, room and board, and legal assistance.
Peter Nguyen Van Hung's exposure of abuses against foreign laborers and brides led the U.S. State Department to list Taiwan as a "Tier 2" region alongside countries such as Cambodia due to their lack of effort in combating human trafficking, which proved a major international embarrassment for the island's government. His work has also made him the target of intimidation in Taiwan. [5] [8]
Nguyễn is the most common surname of the Vietnamese people.
Overseas Vietnamese are Vietnamese people who live outside Vietnam. There are approximately 5 million overseas Vietnamese, the largest community of whom live in the United States.
The Vietnamese Alliance to Combat Trafficking (VietACT) is a Vietnamese non-profit, grassroots organization founded in 2004 dedicated to eradicating human trafficking of Vietnamese victims through collaboration, advocacy, and education.
Vietnamese people in Taiwan form one of the island's larger communities of foreign residents. Of the roughly 80,000 Vietnamese workers who resided in Taiwan as of 2006, 60,000 are employed as domestic helpers, 16,000 work in factories, 2,000 in marine-based industries, and the remainder in other lines of work. They compose 21% of the island's foreign workers. 42% work in Taipei City, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan City. Additionally, 118,300 Vietnamese women who met Taiwanese men through illegal matchmaking services resided in Taiwan as of 2005. Taiwan, along with China and Cambodia, were rated "Tier 2" for their abuses against foreign laborers and illegal brides due to their lack of effort in combating human trafficking.
Prostitution in Vietnam is illegal and considered a serious crime. Nonetheless, Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has estimated that there were 71,936 prostitutes in the country in 2013. Other estimates puts the number at up to 200,000.
In 2008 Vietnam was primarily a source country for women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children were trafficked to the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), Cambodia, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Macau for sexual exploitation. Vietnamese women were trafficked to the P.R.C., Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea via fraudulent or misrepresented marriages for commercial exploitation or forced labor. Vietnam was also a source country for men and women who migrate willingly and legally for work in the construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, Taiwan, P.R.C., Thailand, and the Middle East but subsequently face conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Vietnam was a destination country for Cambodian children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. The country had an internal trafficking problem with women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Vietnam was increasingly a destination for child sex tourism, with perpetrators from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the P.R.C., Taiwan, the UK, Australia, Europe, and the U.S. In 2007, an Australian non-governmental organization (NGO) uncovered 80 cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists in the Sa Pa tourist area of Vietnam alone.
The Lê Văn Khôi revolt was an important revolt in 19th-century Vietnam, in which southern Vietnamese, Vietnamese Catholics, French Catholic missionaries and Chinese settlers under the leadership of Lê Văn Khôi opposed the rule of Emperor Minh Mạng.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Vietnam is the episcopal conference of the Catholic bishops of Vietnam. Initially created in 1960s for South Vietnam, and officially re-founded in 1980 after the reunification of Vietnam, the CBCV is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic hierarchy in Vietnam. The current president of CBCV is Joseph Nguyễn Năng, Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City.
The role of women in Vietnam was subject to many changes throughout the history of Vietnam. They have taken on varying roles in society, and the country has seen a number of advances in women's rights, such as an increase in female representation in government, as well as the creation of the Vietnam Women's Union in 1930.
Lawrence Ting Shan-li was a Taiwanese decorated soldier and businessman who became one of the largest foreign investors in Vietnam. As founder of Phu My Hung Corporation and Saigon South Urban Development Project, Ting was instrumental in the southward expansion of Ho Chi Minh City. Today, the neighborhood created by Ting has become “a new sustainable, inclusive, knowledge-based urban center.”
Taiwan–Vietnam relations are conducted on an unofficial level, as Hanoi adheres to a one-China policy and officially recognises the People's Republic of China only and considers Taiwan to be an "inseparable part" of China's territory. However, this has not stopped bilateral visits, immigration and investment capital between Taiwan and Vietnam. Taiwan has been the fourth largest source of foreign direct investment in Vietnam since 2006. Both countries maintain representative offices; Taiwan is represented by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigón), while Vietnam is represented by the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, both acting as de facto embassies. Vietnam is, to date, the only communist state to have informal relations with Taiwan.
Nguyễn Tường Tam better known by his pen-name Nhất Linh was a Vietnamese writer, editor and publisher in colonial Hanoi. He founded the literary group and publishing house Tự Lực Văn Đoàn in 1932 with the literary magazines Phong Hóa and Ngày Nay ("Today"), and serialized, then published, many of the influential realism-influenced novels of the 1930s.
The Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa or Qing invasion of Đại Việt, also known as Victory of Kỷ Dậu, was fought between the forces of the Vietnamese Tây Sơn dynasty and the Qing dynasty in Ngọc Hồi and Đống Đa in northern Vietnam from 1788 to 1789. It resulted in the failure of the Chinese to restore the last Lê emperor Chiêu Thống, who had been usurped by the Tây Sơn. It is considered one of the greatest victories in Vietnamese military history.
Vietnam Television, sometimes also unofficially known as the National Television, Saigon Television or Channel 9, was one of two national television broadcasters in South Vietnam from February 7, 1966, until just before the Fall of Saigon on April 29, 1975. It was the first television broadcaster in Vietnam.
The Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei is the representative office of Vietnam in Taiwan, which functions as a de facto embassy in the absence of diplomatic relations. Its counterpart body in Vietnam is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam based in Hanoi.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
Sex trafficking in Vietnam is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam is a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for sexually trafficked persons.
From 1849 to 1862, during the early years of the Vietnamese emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam, the most intense, brutal and bloodiest anti-Christian persecution ever in history happened in Vietnam, also was the last state-sponsored persecution of Catholic Christians in Vietnam, as a part of Tự Đức's efforts to eradicate every trace of Vietnamese Christianity. The persecution suddenly stopped in 1862 after a royal decree was passed by Tự Đức himself which granted Catholicism legitimate freedom to practice and protection.
The French conquest of Vietnam1 (1858–1885) was a series of military expeditions that pitted the Second French Empire, later the French Third Republic, against the Vietnamese empire of Đại Nam in the mid-late 19th century. Its end results were victories for the French as they defeated the Vietnamese and their Chinese allies in 1885, the incorporation of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and finally established French rules over constituent territories of French Indochina over Mainland Southeast Asia in 1887.
Nguyễn Kim Hồng, a Vietnamese-Taiwanese documentary filmmaker, was raised in rural province in Vietnam, alongside nine siblings. Dropping out of primary school to support family of agricultural workers, she later moved to Taiwan at the age of 21 after marrying a Taiwanese. Facing domestic abuse, Nguyễn divorced and sustained herself through various jobs. In 2008, she crossed paths with Tsai Tsung-lung, a documentary maker, from whom she learned photography. They not only became life partners but also collaborated in their careers. Nguyễn's documentaries, highlighting the injustices faced by immigrants, have earned recognition in the Taiwanese film industry.
