Vietnamese man arrested for selling seven women to China for $530

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A man in Vietnam's southern province of Dong Thap was arrested Tuesday on accusations he sold seven local women into forced prostitution in China, the police said.

Initial investigations found Pham Thanh Sang, 31, had lied to the women from across the southern Mekong Delta about having a relative who runs a restaurant in Hanoi and would hire them for well-paid jobs.

Sang then took the seven women to cross the land border to China and sold them to a Vietnamese woman for VND12 million ($530) in March 2015. The women were then forced to serve sex in China, a police report said.

Pham Thanh Sang, 31, a resident in Dong Thap Province, in a police handout photo. Sang was arrested on accusations he has sold seven Vietnamese women to China in 2015.

Sang has been arrested after the victims managed to escape and reported him to the authorities. He will be detained for four months pending further investigations.

Trafficking multiple victims is punishable by up to 20 years in jail in Vietnam.

Vietnamese falling prey to human trafficking increased nearly 13 percent to 1,128 last year, most of them women and children, said the Ministry of Public Security.

According to the United Nations, nearly 21 million people are lured into forced labor every year worldwide and 1.2 million children are trafficked. A third of trafficked women and children are from Southeast Asia.