Vietnam has charged a man with rape after an American student said she was assaulted while in bed during a group vacation. 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, per the AP. She said cops also initially urged her to settle the matter privately. The AP doesn't usually ID people who say they've been sexually assaulted. Tam's 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," she said.
Tam, whose family moved to the US when she was 5, 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 says she 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 she told him not to touch her, but he persisted and climbed on top of her. She says she pushed and punched him and shouted, "No!," but he pinned both her arms above her head and raped her.
Later that night, Tam messaged her boyfriend in the US that she'd been raped. The AP has seen the messages. Afterward, she said she blamed herself and struggled mentally. Tam said that after she reported the incident to police on July 21, they took her back to the room where she said she was raped and asked her to reenact the assault, leaving her distraught. "A part of me is gone. And it's in that room," she said. After she sought help from US officials and a US lawmaker, officials confirmed Thursday that they'd charged the 23-year-old man. Vietnam's foreign ministry rep said that authorities had initiated legal proceedings "in accordance with Vietnamese law."
The spokesperson didn't respond to questions about alleged police pressure to settle the case. The man charged in the case didn't respond to AP queries sent via social media. Tam, who's from Houston, said she got little help at the US Embassy in Hanoi, where she was told she could report the matter to Vietnamese police or return home. After Tam's father contacted their senator, Ted Cruz, the embassy called her to apologize. The State Department said it was aware of her case but couldn't comment further because of legal and privacy reasons, though it noted that American "safety and security" was its top priority. More here.
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