By Bennett Murray

HANOI

Vietnamese state security forces have reported a 12.8 percent increase in Vietnamese human trafficking victims for 2016, according to state media.

Despite a six percent drop in total cases, the Ministry of Public Security’s figures for 2016 showed that the total number of detected victims climbed to 1,128, reported the VN Express news site.

While the security ministry’s data didn’t differentiate between victims trafficked for sex work and laborers forced into other forms of servitude, a separate report from the National Committee for AIDS, Drug and Prostitution Prevention recorded 600 rescued women and children for 2016.

Most were on the way to China, where a gender imbalance has increased demand for forced marriages to foreign women.

Last year’s spike was in line with a previously recorded increase of human trafficking out of Vietnam in recent years.

Between 2011 and 2015, government data showed a 11.6 percent increase in human trafficking compared to the previous five-year period.

Authorities have blamed poverty, insufficient law enforcement, porous borders and increased demand abroad for the rise.