Nguyen Tien Dung, 48, coerced girls living in the Social Support Center run by the city Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to let him touch their breasts or genitalia if they wanted to smoke or visit their relatives, the Binh Thanh District police said.

He also got the girls to touch his genitals, they said.

Some of them later suffered from mental trauma, and spoke about Dung’s molestation to counsellors. At least six girls aged between 13 and 15 came forward to accuse him of abuse.

A photo of Nguyen Tien Dung on his Facebook profile.

Dung confessed to molesting at least two of the girls.

He is an employee of the center’s document management division, while the two girls were vagrants living in a local park who were brought to the center by authorities.

He is facing charges for molestation.

The Social Support Center in Saigon receives vagrants, beggars and homeless people. Within three months those who have families are allowed to go home while the rest are moved to shelters.

Around 700 children in Saigon have been sexually harassed, molested or abused in the last five years, according to official figures. Many of them were injured, mentally scarred, pregnant, or even killed as a result.

Vietnam recorded 1,547 child sex abuse cases in 2018, according to the Ministry of Public Security.