• Last week, several Serbian news agencies and NGOs working against human trafficking and labor exploitation reported on alleged human trafficking of migrant Vietnamese laborers working at a construction site for the Chinese tire manufacturer Shandong Linglong Tire.
• The reports claimed that around 500 Vietnamese laborers working on the construction of the first Chinese car tire factory in Europe, which is located near the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin, face poor working and living conditions, a lack of food and medical care, as well as having their passports confiscated by their employer.
• The two Serbian NGOs, Initiative for Economic and Social Rights (A11) and Anti Trafficking Action (ASTRA), reportedly filed requests for Serbian authorities to review and react to potential human trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation of Vietnamese workers.

The workers’ background

• According to the reports from A11 and ASTRA, Vietnamese migrant workers are recruited and transported to Serbia through intermediaries and labor agencies in Vietnam. These intermediaries work with the China Energy Engineering Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction, a company registered in Belgrade, Serbia. The company is a contractor hired by Shandong Ling Long Tire for the construction of its car tire factory in Zrenjanin, Serbia.
• Vietnamese workers arrived at Zrenjanin during the period between March and May this year. They had to pay brokers from US$2,200 to US$4,000 per person in advance for their services, such as transportation, visas, and accommodation fees, according to the reports.
• “Since we arrived here, nothing is good,” Nguyen Van Tri, one of the Vietnamese laborers working at the Linglong construction site, told [1] the Associated Press. “Everything is different from documents we signed in Vietnam. Life is bad, food, medicine, water … everything is bad.”
• Vo Van Hieu, another worker, told [2] the South China Morning Post that the poor living conditions at the construction site make them feel like they are living in a prison. Hieu added that he had taken the job to pay for his sick father’s medical bills.

What did the Serbian NGOs conclude about their situation?