Vietnam: No Country for #MeToo
Government connections protect those implicated in sexual violence.

By Elaine Pearson, Asia Director
Published in: The Diplomat

January 24, 2025

In November, during Vietnamese President Luong Cuong’s visit to Chile, a member of his security detail, Lai Dac Tuan, was arrested on accusations of sexual assault. A Chilean judge ordered him to leave the country and prohibited him from returning for two years. Lai is a lieutenant colonel in Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, which is known for its ruthless suppression of dissent. While Chilean and foreign media covered the story, no word of it appeared in the government-controlled Vietnamese media.

Last March, two restaurant servers in New Zealand accused two Vietnamese policemen of indecent assault when they were in the country to prepare for Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s official visit. The accused fled New Zealand before they could be arrested. In December, following questions from the media about the case, New Zealand police confirmed they “have no doubt these two women were indecently assaulted by two men while working, and had these men still been in New Zealand we would have pursued criminal charges.” Vietnamese domestic media were silent about this incident too.

Violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, is pervasive in Vietnam, and victims rarely feel able to seek help. These are just two incidents, notable because they occurred in foreign countries where victims came forward to the police and media reported the allegations. Inside Vietnam, sexual assault cases are rarely reported to authorities because of stigma, victim blaming, and a culture of impunity in which perpetrators who are well-connected to the government are rarely held to account.

In February 2022, Forbes Vietnam published its “2022 Under 30” list; among those featured was Ngo Hoang Anh, a leading member of the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 information technology team. After a number of women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment, Forbes announced that it had removed Ngo from its list. But there is no indication of any legal action being taken against him.

In March 2022, in a rare case reported to the authorities, a woman referred to publicly as V. N. H. reported to the police that Le Minh Tien, chair of the Department of International Law at Hanoi Law University, had sexually assaulted her multiple times between 2020 and 2022. Hanoi Law is a public university under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Justice. In July 2022, the Ministry of Justice said that the case was under police investigation, and in April 2023, Justice officials said that Le had been given a “warning” and had left his position. There was no further published information about the investigation.

In April 2022, the poet Da Thao Phuong alleged that she had been raped and assaulted in 1999-2000 by a co-worker, Luong Ngoc An, when the two were working at Van Nghe Tre (Young Literature and Arts), a subsidiary of the state-owned Van Nghe (Literature and Arts) newspaper. At the time that Da made her case public, Luong was a senior Communist Party member of the Executive Committee of the official Vietnam Writers Association, and also deputy editor-in-chief of Van Nghe. Da also accused the late Truong Vinh Tuan – the deputy editor-in-chief of Van Nghe in 2000s who was assigned to deal with her allegation – of preventing her from filing a complaint, and retaliating by slandering her, refusing to publish her work, and threatening to fire her.

Ten days after Da published allegations on social media in April 2022, another poet, Bui Mai Hanh, alleged that Luong Ngoc An had also sexually assaulted her. Several days later, the Vietnam Writers Association announced that as of May 1, 2022, Luong would no longer be the deputy editor-in-chief of Van Nghe. The association did not provide a reason.

In December 2024, after two and a half years in hiatus, Luong was promoted to deputy editor-in-chief of another state-controlled magazine – an appointment that caused a renewed uproar on social media. On January 4, 2025, the Vietnam Writers Association abruptly announced that it had withdrawn “its decision regarding the appointment of Luong Ngoc An,” again without any explanation.

These cases share a common theme: the accused are either state employees or closely affiliated with state institutions, and often Vietnamese Communist Party members. Despite the severity of the accusations, there have been no criminal investigations of the suspects, no prosecutions, and virtually no punishments. The state’s response has been complete silence or worse. And these cases are just the ones publicly reported.

Much of the research on violence against women in Vietnam has focused on intimate partner violence. According to U.N. Women, in Vietnam “nearly 2 in every 3 women… have experienced one or more forms of physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence as well as controlling behavior by a husband/partner in their life. More than 90 percent of women who experienced sexual and/or physical violence by their husband/partner did not seek any help from formal services or authorities.”

In a 2016 report, ActionAid found that “87 percent of Vietnamese women and girls have encountered sexual harassment in a public place,” and “89 percent of men and bystanders have witnessed acts of sexual harassment against women and girls.” The anthropologist Nguyen Thu Huong has argued that sexual assault cases persist because Vietnam’s inadequate legal system, combined with social stigma and a “victim blaming” culture, discourages victims of sexual assaults from coming forward and seeking justice.

In responding to a recent United Nations review of its human rights record, Vietnam accepted all recommendations to promote gender equality and to combat gender violence, including sexual violence against women. If the government is serious about upholding its pledges, then the first step would be for the Vietnamese authorities to carry out thorough and transparent investigations into all reports of sexual violence against women, and fully and impartially prosecute those responsible, regardless of their political status or connections.