Efforts to prevent highland children from dropping out of school to work for hire

In recent times, through social networks, many students in the border areas of Lao Cai province have been lured and lured by subjects to drop out of school to work in the lowland provinces with the promise of easy work and high salaries, and then used tricks such as forcing them to sign work contracts, confiscating their phones and preventing them from contacting their families. Lao Cai provincial police are working hard to coordinate with departments, sectors and people to prevent this situation.

From the SOS call…

Like every day, HNBC, an 8th grader at Vinh Yen Secondary School, Bao Yen District (Lao Cai), still went to school. But after school hours, he did not see his son come home, so Mr. Hoang Van T called and was shocked to find that his son had gotten in a car with 2 classmates to go to Hanoi to work part-time with a salary of 10 million VND. Mr. H quickly reported the incident to the Vinh Yen Commune Police to trace the taxi that took his son away. After the taxi took the 3 children to Yen Bai province, it suddenly stopped and transferred them to another car.

Integrating legal propaganda activities on high-tech crimes for students in mountainous border areas.

Realizing something was wrong, HNBC called and sent the location to his father via mobile phone. As soon as he received the information, Mr. T contacted the Vinh Yen and Bao Yen Commune Police for help. The Commune Police coordinated with the Traffic Police Department to track down the direction of the taxi. After nearly a day of following the location, Mr. T arrived at a restaurant in Vinh Phuc province. After reporting the incident, he learned that his son's phone had been confiscated and he was forced to sign a work contract with a salary of 6 million VND per month, including living expenses...

Mr. T said: “After I said I wanted to take my child home to continue studying and did not agree to let him stay and work, the owner of the facility asked me to pay back the 1.8 million VND brokerage fee and 600,000 VND for the children’s travel expenses before he would let me pick up my child.”

Fake accounts and sweet talk…

Around the beginning of May 2025, 4 8th grade students from Can Cau Secondary School, Simacai District, followed a social media account, skipped school and took a bus to Hanoi to work as phone case makers with a salary of 9-10 million VND. Following the promise of easy work, high salary, no need to work hard in the fields but still have a lot of money to spend, V persuaded 3 students from the same school to skip semester exams to take a bus following the instructions of the person he met on social media. After discovering that 4 students were missing, the teachers asked their classmates and learned that the students had dropped out of school to go to the lowlands to work as hired workers.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Long, a teacher at Can Cau Secondary School, recalled: “After learning this information, we were very shocked and immediately reported to the Can Cau Commune Police to trace the passenger bus carrying 4 students going downstream, with the hope of stopping this bus to bring the students back”. Immediately after receiving the information, the Can Cau Commune Police coordinated with the Bac Ha - Si Ma Cai regional working group (under the Road Traffic Police Team No. 2 - Lao Cai Provincial Traffic Police Department) to quickly deploy a closed patrol force, focusing on checking vehicles, especially passenger buses traveling through the area.

After a short time, the task force discovered a passenger bus carrying 4 students with identifying characteristics matching the description. The students included: TNV, LAT, TVT and TVS (all born in 2011, residing in Can Cau commune, Si Ma Cai district). After approaching, the authorities took the students to the headquarters and handed them over to their families. At the same time, the local police continued to coordinate to monitor and encourage the students to return to school to avoid a recurrence of the incident.

After being explained and informed by the authorities and knowing that the account that contacted him was a fake account, T felt scared. T shared: "At first, I heard them say that the job was just sitting at home making phone cases, not having to go out in the sun and climb hills, but the salary was high, so I believed it and wanted to go back there to work for a few months during the summer vacation to earn some spending money."

Potential dangers

In contrast to explaining to their children, many families in the highlands, due to lack of understanding, agreed to let their children go to work far away during the summer vacation and signed the commitments haphazardly. However, they did not know where their children would eat, stay, live, or work. Only when their children called for help did they realize, but they could not bring their children back because they did not have enough money to compensate for the breach of contract. Therefore, many families are living in fear, unable to bring their children back, unable to leave them behind.

Captain Ban Trong Nghia - Deputy Chief of Can Cau Commune Police, Simacai District said: "Taking advantage of students' need to find jobs during the summer vacation to earn extra income to support their families, many subjects have lured children through social networks, thereby posing many potential risks such as human trafficking, underage labor...".

Although the Commune Police force has coordinated with schools and villages to propagate not to listen to advertisements and enticements on the internet to work far from home, the difficulty is that the majority of people are ethnic minorities, poor households, difficult circumstances, many children and low education level, so it is very difficult to mobilize. People still do not fully understand the potential risks of sending their children to work far from home and the hidden risks from sweet words that they will have a light job with high salary.

Faced with the situation where some people take advantage of social networks such as Zalo and Facebook to post fake recruitment information, defrauding workers - especially students - with attractive promises about jobs and income, the Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department of Lao Cai Provincial Police has issued some important recommendations for parents, students and schools as follows.

Parents need to pay attention and closely monitor their children, especially those in their teens who are easily tempted. Strengthen education on life skills and skills to identify information on social networks, helping children distinguish between right and wrong, real and fake information. Do not completely entrust the management of children to the school or technological devices (phones, computers). Parents need to proactively discuss and cooperate with the school when they discover that their children show signs of dropping out of school or looking for jobs of unknown origin; students absolutely do not believe in attractive invitations on social networks about easy work, high salaries without clear verification.

Do not leave home or drop out of school to work, especially with strangers you meet online. You should consult adults, teachers or authorities if you intend to find a part-time job and proactively equip yourself with legal knowledge, especially related to labor and online fraud; In addition, schools need to strengthen propaganda and legal education among students, especially about job fraud tricks via social networks.

Closely coordinate with parents and the police force to monitor and detect early signs of abnormality in students. Integrate high-tech crime prevention content into class meetings and extracurricular activities. Set up psychological counseling and career guidance channels so that students have a place to share and ask questions before making important decisions.

Source: https://cand.com.vn/Xa-hoi/no-luc-ngan-chan-tre-em-vung-cao-bo-hoc-di-lam-thue-i769987/