More than 1,000 cases were detected by June this year involving 2,600 victims.

In 829 of them, the traffickers sold 2,319 people to China, according to ministry data released at a meeting on Tuesday.

Most cases had been found in northern border provinces such as Lao Cai, Ha Giang, Dien Bien, and Quang Ninh, and most of the victims were women and children.

In just six months from July last year Chinese authorities rescued more than 1,100 trafficked women, many them sold as brides, in a joint operation with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Besides the financial situation of victims, police officers have said negligence, easy immigration procedures and gender imbalance in destination countries are also responsible for human trafficking.

China, the world’s most populous country, suffers from one of the worst gender imbalance rates due to its one-child policy and illicit abortion of female fetuses by parents wanting sons. This has led to increasing trafficking of Vietnamese women and baby girls.

In its 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report issued in June, the U.S. said Vietnam has not fully met the minimum standards of the U.S.’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 but is making significant efforts to comply with those standards.

Vietnam’s efforts have included running major awareness campaigns in communities vulnerable to trafficking and government-facilitated training for consular officers, police and other relevant agencies in combating trafficking, the report said.

The lack of interagency coordination and provincial officials’ lack of familiarity with anti-trafficking laws and victim protection continue to impede anti-trafficking efforts, it said.

Traffickers increasingly use the Internet, gaming sites and, particularly, social media to lure potential victims into vulnerable situations while many men entice young women and girls with online dating relationships and persuade them to move abroad and then subject them to forced labor or sex trafficking.

Some traffickers pose as police officers on social media to gain victims’ trust.

Some Vietnamese women are also misled by fraudulent employment opportunities and sold to brothel operators on the borders of mainland China, Cambodia, Laos, and elsewhere in Asia, including Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.