Hanoi, Vietnam — Vietnam has charged a man with rape after an American student said she was assaulted while in her bed during a group holiday. Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, 24, said she was raped on July 5 and pressured by the man's family to accept money and not go to police. She said the police also initially urged her to settle the matter privately.
The does not usually identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Her candor is unusual for Vietnam, where sexual violence is rarely discussed publicly, but she said she wanted to speak out to help protect other women. "I'm doing this not just for me.
But for everybody else that has been harmed," said Tam. Tam's account was documented in interviews, her police complaint and communications with U.S. and Vietnamese officials. After she sought help from U.S. officials and a U.S. lawmaker, officials confirmed Thursday that they had charged the 23-year-old man.
Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson, Pham Thu Hang, said authorities had initiated legal proceedings "in accordance with Vietnamese law." She did not respond to questions about alleged police pressure to settle the case. The man charged in the case did not respond to AP queries sent via social media. Tam, whose family moved to the United States when she was 5 years old, returned to Vietnam in May for a banking internship, hoping to reconnect with her family's homeland.
She joined a group of acquaintances on a July 4 trip to a resort in Phu Tho, near Hanoi. The group stayed up late and when she went to bed, Tam found herself locked out of the room where she expected to sleep. She found another bedroom and fell asleep with the door unlocked, then awoke to the 23-year-old man kissing her neck.
Her complaint says Tam told him not to touch her, but he persisted and climbed on top of her. She pushed and punched him and shouted, "No!" But he pinned both her arms above her head and raped her. Later that night, she messaged her boyfriend in the U.S. that she had been raped.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
