On the night of January 11, 2023, social media platforms in Vietnam were hit by shocking news. An online video clip alleged that two female students of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology (HUFLIT) had been raped while staying at the Center for National Defense and Security Training of the Military School Military Region 7 for their military classes.

In Vietnam, university students must take military classes as part of their curriculum. A post on the Facebook group called HUFLIT Confessions – where the HUFLIT students posted their personal stories – detailed the sexual assaults. It further claimed that one of the students in the video jumped off a balcony in an attempt to commit suicide. There were over 200,000 reactions to that post before it got deleted.