Charging Vietnamese families to repatriate their dead, trafficked, family members

How truly lacking in humanity some people are.

JE why amazingly, with the blessing of their families? Of course they had the blessing of their families, these are very poor people who can see no future for their children or themselves in the countries they live in.

They see other families who have got a family member to the UK, legally or illegally, prospering from the money these immigrants send back, children educated, the money to build a brick house with basic amenities like electricity.

Of course if someone can offer a child in their family some chance of hope and redemption from poverty, they will grab it, sell themselves into slavery, do anything to help a child get a better future thna they have.

You say they are terribly poor yet the parents managed to come up with thousands to pay illegal traffickers.

Surely that money would have been better spent paying for their children to gain qualifications in Vietnam ?

The youngsters then would have something to offer Western countries and they could apply to work abroad in the normal way.

Yes of course it was tragic how they died but they shouldn’t have been encouraged by their parents to undertake such a foolish and illegal journey.

I doubt if these impoverished parents managed to come up with such huge sums of money - from what I've read a community crowd-funds, or the money is owed and paid back when the young person is working.

I expect many of the families will be hounded by the traffickers/money lenders for repayment.

As M0nica says:

They begged, borrowed and stole from friends and family, money lenders and some by selling their bodies. All the ways desperate people do when life is utterly hopeless but they see one, just one, small chink of light.

I doubt their parents had the money sitting in an ISA and pondered over how best to spend it.

Nevertheless they DID come up with the money by some means or other so I repeat- it would have been far better spent paying for the youngsters’ education

According to the news one father sold his land to pay for his daughter's passage to a 'better life' so now they have nothing, not even anywhere to grow crops.

What amazes me is the fact that when they reach the UK these young people are often slaves, how come this does not reach their relatives back home ? Do they really believe they are welcomed with open arms and given lucrative jobs ?

These people are poor village folk but there are huge opportunities now in Vietnam as its economy improves.

How are the relatives back home to know what really goes on on the other side of world?

I bet there are many in the UK who know little of the exploitation that can go on in nail bars, car washes, cannabis farms, etc.

Remember all those years ago the cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay? I had no idea such an activity existed!

Just as until recently I'd not heard of trafficked labour used in cannabis farms. How are Vietnamese villagers to know?

The parents were not so poor that they couldn’t afford smartphones. I remember them saying that was how they kept in touch with their offspring.

Anyone with a smartphone of course would have access to news around the world, and anyway they knew their youngsters were coming here with people smugglers.

They were fully aware that it was all illegal.

I hope those of you showing a lack of concern / empthay etc don't call yourselves Christians.

I’m a humanist.
?

It goes without saying that everyone is aware of what a tragedy it was but the fact remains that the families were complicit in sending their relatives here illegally.

Urmstongran? I honestly don’t know what I am but probably an agnostic.

I believe they are the ones who say there is no way of knowing if or not there is a God of any persuasion? Surely that’s true?

Sorry, going off topic!

The Vietnam government told the British government they would be paying the money, then actually only paid part of it and told the families that the rest was a loan.
The government in Vietnam could easily have paid the full amount to the families( but have chosen not to as a lesson to anyone who help family members to be smuggled abroad.)
That last comment in brackets is my own view btw.

How many of you, if you got yourself illegally into another country, then died, would expect your native country or the country you went to illegally to pay for the repatriation of your body?

I wouldn't expect it. I don't think my family would either.

This has nothing to do with feeling sympathy for and horror about the nature of the deaths in question.

Exactly Baggs

If I or my children died at the hands of people from that country I’d like to think that the Govt of that very wealthy would use proceeds of crime monies to help return my body to my home country.

If anyone here thinks this will act as a deterrent then they’re mistaken.

But they didn’t die at the hands of people from this country they died at the hands of people from their own country who started this business. There are wicked and evil people in all countries and these poor Vietnamese people have been conned and killed by them not by us. If anyone should pay it should be all those involved in this trafficking business from Vietnam to and including those in the UK.

No - they died in the back of a lorry driven by a man from the UK with other men from this country also arrested on people trafficking and manslaughter charges.

And on UK soil.

Yes I know and I agree that is dreadful. It is an awful thing that has happened to those poor people but I read that the father of one of them at least has had contact from someone at the Vietnamese end of the trafficking trying to pay back the money, presumably to stop them talking to the authorities. I realise that at this end they were in a lorry driven by a man from the UK but he didn’t start this process. I’m all for him and the others involved to pay for this.
I still haven’t had a reply from anyone who can tell me where they have seen it written that Dominic Raab or the UK have asked the Vietnamese people to pay for the repatriation of the bodies.

It’s probably more Tory bashing by the usual Socialist suspects.

I also have not read anything about this other than on here.

The families of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a lorry in England last month will have
to cover the costs to repatriate their relatives’ remains, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an official document.
Local authorities in central provinces of Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, which were home to the highest number of victims, asked the families whether they wanted repatriation of the bodies or the ashes brought back.

Lê Hồng Vinh, vice chairman of Nghệ An Province's People’s Committee, said the local departments of finance and labour, invalids and social affairs will consult with local authorities to support the families after the bodies are repatriated, the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) reported.

Source: Vietnam News

vietnamnews.vn/society/548708/vietnamese-families-of-uk-lorry-victims-have-to-cover-repatriation-costs-mofa.html#kTxiIx1wjGUt71Sj.97

JenniferEccles, if politics are what you take from this, then I have no words. Genuinely.