As many as 629 billion VND will be planned for a programme to stamp out prostitution at any form and minimise its impacts on social life in 2011-2015.

The figure was released at a conference held by the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs in Ha Long city, the northern province of Quang Ninh on June 28, which saw the attendance of Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong.

The money will come from State and local budgets as well as be mobilised from domestic and foreign organisations and society.

Participants agreed that the programme will focus on reviewing, amending and supplementing legal documents on prostitution prevention, speeding up dissemination and education work, and strengthening the examination, inspection and elimination of prostitution hotspots.

The programme will set up community models to encourage former sex workers to take part in the fight against HIV/AIDS and reintegrate into the community; build communes, wards and towns free from prostitution; and improve the capacity of those in charge of prostitution prevention.

Deputy PM Trong, who is also Chairman of the National Committee for AIDS, Drugs and Prostitution Control and Prevention, stressed that preventing and combating prostitution will contribute to warding off the century disease of HIV/AIDS and promoting socio-economic development.

“It is necessary to renew dissemination work and raise public awareness of prostitution prevention,” he said, adding that prevention measures should be combined with provision of treatment and vocational training for former sex workers to enable them to reintegrate into the community./.