Cuong first left his home in Vietnam’s central northern Nghe An province five years ago with a single goal in mind – to earn more money to support his wife and three kids.

He set off first for Romania, where he was told it was easier for Vietnamese nationals to get visas and find good-paying work. But once he arrived, he was shuffled through a series of manual labor jobs that paid just $500 — less than a third of what he had been promised. 

With living expenses and the bribes he had to pay each time he wanted to move jobs, after four years, he had barely even managed to earn back the nearly $7,000 he had borrowed from the bank to pay an agent to get to Romania in the first place. 

“Around that time I got a call from a group of smugglers saying they could take me to the United Kingdom,” the 39-year-old recounted to Radio Free Asia through a translator in early September. 

“I was scared but after another group of migrants went with them and made it, I thought it was safe and so I agreed to go as well.” 

Cuong spent a week crammed in the back of different vans and sleeping in warehouses where all there was to eat was one loaf of bread between 20 people. By the time the group arrived at their “destination” – a coastline along the English Channel – Cuong was so disoriented he didn’t even know what country he was in.

This is how he found himself, on an evening in June 2023, watching as “at least 60 people” were loaded into a glorified dinghy. 

“The whole time I was praying to God that I would survive, I was so frightened. I kept thinking ‘this boat is too heavy, I won’t make it’,” he said.

“I decided that I would never do anything like this again. If anyone ever asked me to travel like that in the future I would say no.”

Cuong’s circumstances didn’t improve much once he got to dry land. He was again in debt, owing more than $26,000 to the smugglers for the trip. He struck a deal whereby he would work at a cannabis farm to pay it back, but was fired this year and left homeless, unemployed, and with less money in his pocket than when he had first left Vietnam.

Even still, Cuong counts himself lucky. “At least I’m still alive,” he told RFA from London where he has been living since he lost his job.

The same cannot be said for everyone who has attempted the journey. 

The same year Cuong left Vietnam, 39 Vietnamese set out for the UK. On the evening of October 22, 2019, the group climbed into the back of a refrigerated truck in Belgium and headed toward Essex, a county on the UK’s southeastern coast. Twelve hours later, they had all died of suffocation and hypothermia. 

The incident – at the time the UK’s worst migrant tragedy in over two decades – sent shockwaves around the world. But it hasn’t stopped those in Vietnam from moving abroad to seek better opportunities. Whether they travel by sea or by land, in the years since, thousands of people like Cuong have continued to gamble their lives – and their savings – with corrupt brokers looking to profit off the desperate and vulnerable. 

In August and September, RFA traveled to Vietnam, the UK and Canada to speak with migrants and trafficking victims, and their families, as well as researchers and support organizations to understand why so many people continue to leave Vietnam, what the process really entails and what happens to those who finally make it abroad.

The push factors

Many of those leaving Vietnam hail from Nghe An, the country’s largest province, and neighboring Ha Tinh. Of the 39 victims in the Essex incident, almost all were from those provinces. 

Nghe An holds great significance in the country’s history. Ho Chi Minh, the revered leader of Vietnam’s fight for independence and the country’s first president and first prime minister, was born in a small town in Kim Lien commune, 15 kilometers west of the provincial capital Vinh. 

But its legacy has done little to protect the province from becoming one of the country’s poorest. There are not enough jobs to support the population of 3.3 million, so people “want to move abroad to earn more money,” according to Mau, an electrical engineer from Nghe An who runs the over 44,000 member information-sharing group on Facebook called ‘Người Nghệ An’, or People of Nghe An.

Farming – the primary source of income for most residents – is a constant challenge as a result of the province’s famously volatile weather. “When it’s hot, it’s very hot. When it rains, there is lots of rain, which also causes flooding,” explained Mau. These extremes are expected to worsen in the next 20 years due to climate change and rising temperatures.

Jobs outside the agricultural sector are few, with the handful of factories that have been established in rural areas insufficient to match the labor supply, especially as the population continues to grow.

The average monthly income per capita in Nghe An in 2022 was 3.639 million VND (around $150) – over 1 million VND less than the national average. The income from salaries and wages alone, which pertain to formal types of employment, was even lower at only 1.758 million VND per month (around $71).

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Beyond these, political oppression creates another reason to leave.

On paper, certain rights and freedoms are enshrined in the country’s constitution; in practice the government maintains a tight grip on power by blocking access to information, restricting civil spaces, and limiting all political opposition.

These circumstances played a part in Cuong’s decision to leave Vietnam. 

A few years before he went to Romania, Cuong took part in a protest against a foreign manufacturing conglomerate responsible for a chemical spill that killed millions of fish and stripped local communities of jobs without compensation— one of Vietnam’s largest public demonstrations in recent years. 

At least 41 activists who took part in the protests were put in prison; 31 remain behind bars today. Cuong told RFA that as he was leaving the protest, he was followed by police officers in plainclothes. While he never had any direct run-in with the authorities afterwards, the experience planted a paranoia in him that he couldn’t shake. 

“I felt that they were keeping an eye on me all the time, which made me scared to leave my house, even to work and earn money,” he told RFA. 

Making the move

Residents of Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces who spoke to RFA described three ways that most people tend to move abroad. The first, is through government programs, which are largely carried out through over 500 licensed labor export agencies that arrange recruitment, immigration, travel and work placement for Vietnamese going abroad.

Vietnam’s government has long been in favor of exporting labor, repeatedly encouraging its citizens to work overseas to improve “the quality of the nations’ workforce” and promote “international integration”. 

In 2023, 160,000 Vietnamese nationals traveled abroad via government-sponsored programs, an increase from the 142,000 that went abroad in 2022. Most of these programs placed workers in East Asia, with more than 90 percent going to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea last year. 

But Vietnam doesn’t have labor contracts with most countries in Europe and North America, where many wish to go because they believe they can earn more money. These prospective migrants often left relying on private agencies, rather than government schemes, like the one that Cuong used. These agencies are not legal entities in Vietnam, but people pay them to guide them through legal migration channels by securing legitimate visas and employment. 

Even with these independent companies, prospective migrants can encounter roadblocks in terms of language or other skills that fail to qualify them for a visa. In these cases there is only one option left and that is to go abroad illegally with nothing but a tourist visa or no visa at all through schemes often orchestrated by smugglers and human trafficking rings.

Regardless of the method, the primary motivation for leaving is to earn more money that can be sent home to support their families. In 2023, recorded remittances in Vietnam totaled $14 billion – over three percent of the country’s GDP – and is expected to reach $15 billion next year, according to the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, or Knomad, a platform that tracks migration patterns. 

The only country to exceed Vietnam in Southeast Asia is the Philippines, which also sees a high rate of outward migration every year. In both countries, 40 to 60 percent of exported labor end up in the United States and the United Kingdom, where salaries are higher, according to Knomad. 

Billionaire’s Village

Do Thanh, located just north of Vinh in Nghe An, is one Vietnamese commune that has seen countless numbers of its residents go off to work in North America and Europe — through both legal and illegal pathways.

Dubbed “Billionaire’s Village,” the town has been transformed in recent years due to the generous remittances sent home by loved ones abroad. When RFA visited in mid-August, the streets were lined with large gold-plated gates wrapping around recently-renovated, multi-story homes.

“In this town, every family has at least one member who has gone abroad to work,” said Ninh, a long-term resident. He and others who spoke to RFA for this story asked that only their first name or a pseudonym be used due to the sensitivity around migration in Vietnam.

A smiley man in his 50s, Ninh has embraced his hometown’s reputation. Four of his five children have already gone to work in construction and at nail salons in Canada and in Europe, and when RFA spoke with Ninh, his youngest, who had recently turned 20, was preparing to fly to Canada to work on a farm. 

To send them abroad, Ninh worked with a private agency that took care of visa applications, travel arrangements and sorted out employment abroad. He told RFA that his children traveled legally, each with two-year work visas.

They’re paid significantly more than what they would get in Vietnam, though well below minimum wage by Western standards.

“If my children stayed in Vietnam they would only be able to do manual work where they wouldn’t get paid much,” Ninh explained, stopping to take a puff from his pipe. 

“The way I see it they may as well go abroad where they can do the same work but get paid more.” 

Gambling life savings

While the incentive to leave is high, sending a loved one abroad requires months of planning and a huge financial investment on the part of the entire family.

Ninh paid $30,000 to send each of his children abroad – more than 200 times the average monthly income in Nghe An. To pull together this kind of money, he had to take out numerous bank loans, mortgage his home and borrow from friends and family. Each time his children sent home remittances – a couple thousand dollars a month each – it was put aside to help fund the next child’s travels.

Only now that his youngest is leaving will they have enough money to start paying off their debt, but it will take a long time, he said.

Hong, a food vendor who lives in Do Thanh, also paid $30,000 for her son to move to Canada. 

She told RFA that he had made most of the arrangements and all she knew was that the money had gone to a “Canada-based company that helps prospective Vietnamese migrants.” But similar to Ninh, the cost took an enormous toll on her family.

“We had to mortgage our house, but this only covered around 70 percent of the payment, so the rest of the money we had to borrow from family,” Hong explained. 

While Ninh said that he worked with an independent agent and his children all traveled abroad legally, he noted that it was difficult at first to tell the corrupt agents from the clean ones.

“I was very afraid that I would become victim to a scam. We were paying so much money and had made so many sacrifices to get that money, and only one out 10 of these cases are successful,” said Ninh.

He had good reason to be afraid. Last year, Vietnam’s Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs found increasing amounts of fraud among companies posing as legitimate labor export agencies. Some are in it for the cash, swindling prospective migrants out of their life savings,   

but others are part of a much more insidious network of forced labor scams that send vulnerable workers to cyber scam compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar.

A recent report from the United States Institute of Peace found that Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces were “trafficking hot spots” for scam compounds and casinos that have become prevalent in those countries.

Minh, a young photographer from Vinh, avoided being trafficked but was scammed out of his savings. He had been struggling to find work in Vietnam when he heard about a husband and wife team based in Nghe An who he thought were offering legitimate services to help people move to Canada, he told RFA. 

“At the time, I had only heard success stories of people moving abroad and making lots of money so I didn’t think I had any reason to be scared,” he said.

He paid the couple an upfront fee of 90 million VND ($3,650). But after a year, he still hadn’t heard back.

“They told me that my ‘supporting documents’ were not sufficient, but I’m pretty sure they never even submitted my application. They just took my money and did nothing,” he said.

He had put most of his savings toward the deposit, he said. With limited work available for him in Vietnam, it took him more than a year to make it back.

The agents

While working with agents brings a level of risk, they are an integral part of the labor export market. 

Both legal and illegal agencies are often based in, or have affiliates in, areas that see high rates of outward migration. In Thien Loc, a commune in northeastern Ha Tinh province where many have migrated out of in recent years, several agencies are known to have helped workers travel to Hungary and then elsewhere in Europe. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, most would fly to Russia first.

Ha, a young salon owner in Thien Loc, told RFA that this was how her husband first left home back in 2018.

“My husband first flew to Russia with a tourist visa. Then he was driven overland to Germany where he worked in a restaurant that hires undocumented workers,” explained Ha, speaking to RFA through a translator from her salon in mid-August. 

“He wanted to stay in Germany but he couldn’t get a visa, so he went to France, but he faced the same problem, so he moved again to the UK where he’s hoping he’ll be able to stay long term.” 

Ha doesn’t know the specifics of her husband’s circumstances, only that he managed to find work at a nail salon and has applied to stay in the UK long-term. 

“He’s become an even better manicurist than me now,” she joked, before a solemn look came back over her face and her eyes filled with tears. 

She and her husband speak on the phone when they can and he has sent home remittances from his work abroad, but the distance and not knowing when they will be reunited has been hard on her and her children.

“It’s been six years since I’ve seen him and I don’t know when I’ll see him next,” she said. 

But Ha was grateful that her husband is safe, especially when other families in Can Loc district have sent loved ones and never seen them again. 

Nguyen Thi Phong and her husband, who are from Nghen, a town neighboring Thien Loc, became one of these families when their daughter Pham Thi Tra My, then 26, ended up in the back of the infamous Essex lorry.

Eager to go to the UK, Tra My had sought out a local agent for help. While her family helped pull together the $40,000 in travel expenses and agent fees, Tra My had handled most of the planning herself.

“She made all the arrangements and as a result we didn’t know much about the process until after the fact,” her mother, Nguyen Thi Phong, told RFA in mid-August.

From Vietnam, Tra My first traveled to China, where she spent several days, then on to France and finally to Belgium where she boarded the truck to Essex.

Tra My was the one to sound the alarms about the situation inside the lorry. The evening before the bodies were found she sent her parents a text. “I’m sorry Dad and Mom. The way I went overseas was not successful. Mom, I love Dad and you so much. I’m dying because I can’t breathe,” the message read. But it was too late. The truck was found the following day and everyone inside was already dead.

“At least thanks to that message they were able to find the bodies and eventually return them home to us,” Thi Phong said.

Twenty-nine people in the UK and France have been convicted in connection to the horrific incident, and some of the agencies, including the one that Tra My used, have been closed, her mother said.

But the long-term impact in Vietnam has been minimal.

Nga, a teacher from Do Thanh, explained that while the incident was shocking, it didn’t put a stop to the mass exodus the way that many may have thought.

“People were a little scared, but they are still so eager to go abroad. They know it is risky, especially those who go abroad illegally, but they are desperate so they continue to take the risk,” said Nga. 

The only deterrent in recent years has come from restrictions imposed by countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now that these have been lifted, migration has once again spiked.

Between January and April, the UK recorded 1,060 small boats carrying Vietnamese nationals across the English Channel to its shore – the highest among all nationalities and almost as many as the total recorded in all of 2023. Thousands more Vietnamese have also continued to travel to other countries in Europe as well as Asia and North America. 

“The economy is not good, there are not many jobs. People see all the successful cases and keep choosing to go abroad but I hope that they will remember what happened to my daughter and stop taking the risk,” said Thi Phong.

Alone and isolated

The first time Quan Tranh, a coordinator at the Community of Refugees from Vietnam, or CRV, in London, found Cuong, he was sleeping outside his office.

Tranh found Cuong a room at a hotel run by the UK’s Home Office and has been assisting him in filing an official asylum claim.

The UK’s Modern Slavery Act, passed in 2015, has made it easier for victims of human trafficking to seek asylum, but many, like Cuong, don’t know this and end up falling victim to scams that see refugees pay as much as $17,000 to have a so-called “storyteller” manufacture an asylum narrative that they claim will pass muster with the authorities. 

Already in debt from paying agents for their travels from Vietnam, migrants are often coerced into cobbling together yet another huge lump sum of cash to pay these storytellers. 

Then, it’s another long wait. While the UK government claims that each application will be processed in six months, Tranh said that it usually takes closer to three years. If they want to claim residency afterwards, it’s another five to 10 years. 

In the United States, it’s a similar story. An American immigration lawyer who previously spoke to RFA explained that migrants could have up to nine years of legal residence as their case is processed. In Canada, another popular destination, it usually takes three to four years for asylum claims to be processed and several more years to receive residency, according to Le, who works at the Vietnamese community center in Canada. 

In response to the high number of migrants, the UK and Vietnam signed an agreement in April, committing to increase intelligence sharing, better facilitate the return of those with “no right to remain in the UK” and promote legal migration routes. 

While it’s too soon to see much of an impact from the agreement, Tranh suspects it will result in a higher rate of deportation back to Vietnam. However, when it comes to addressing the root causes of the mass exodus, residents of Nghe An and Ha Tinh told RFA that not enough is being done – most of the government’s efforts remain focused on encouraging overseas migration rather than boosting the local economy. 

Requests for comment to national labor officials and government departments in Ha Tinh and Nghe An were not answered by press time. Local officials have announced plans to boost development and the economy, most recently with an effort to improve education and job opportunities by 2030. But even if such a policy succeeded, it would take years to see its impact on the ground. 

Meanwhile, for many migrants, returning to Vietnam remains an impossibility.

“When I first left Vietnam, I had to borrow money from the bank to pay the agent, which I haven’t been able to pay back while I’ve been abroad,” said Cuong. “If I go back to Vietnam before I pay them back, I am scared they will report me to the police.”

Cuong no longer feels he has any option but to ride out the long wait for his asylum claim in the UK with the hope that his application will be approved and he will find work soon. 

“I wish I had never come to Europe the way that I did with corrupt agents that cheated me,” he said. “If I had known that everything would turn out like this, I wouldn’t do it again.”

Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Allegra Mendelson for RFA Investigative.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.