Sexual bribery exists in Vietnam: official A man is pictured looking at the image of a sexy woman in this photo illustration. AFP Giving bribes in the form of sex to people in a position of power absolutely exists in Vietnam, an official said Wednesday at a conference in Hanoi. Nguyen Doan Khanh, deputy chief of the Central Internal Affairs Commission, told local media at the conference on perfecting regulations on bribery that sex is now offered as a bribe to officials in the country. “According to international experts, sex is considered a type of non-material interests offered to officials as a bribe,” the official said. Bribes comprise not only material interests but also non-material – or spiritual – interests, which people give to officials holding positions and power in exchange for illegitimate benefits they gain from these officials’ unlawful support or assistance, Khanh stressed.   Many international judiciary experts have recommended that Vietnam further amend its Penal Code, which was revised in June 2009, to include ‘sexual bribery’ as a crime, the official said. These experts also suggested that other acts of bribery, as well as new corruption prevention mechanisms, should be included in the code if Vietnam is determined to drive back corruption, Khanh said. “These issues will be considered and included in the draft amendments to the Penal Code in the near future,” he added. A concrete definition on ‘sexual bribery’ should be provided in a proposed amendment to the code to facilitate law enforcement agencies in identifying and handling sexual bribery, the official said. On Tuesday, the Government Inspectorate also released a warning that thousands of billions of dong (VND1 billion = US$47,000) are lost through corruption in Vietnam every year, but only around one-fifth of this amount is recovered. The Inspectorate, citing statistics from the Supreme People’s Procuracy, said losses caused by corruption since the beginning of this year have reached VND6.47 trillion ($304.5 million), but only VND1.5 trillion has been recovered, or 22.3 percent of the total.  In the period from October 1, 2010 to April 30, 2013, corruption caused a total loss of more than VND17 trillion ($800.19 million), but the amount recovered was only about VND5 trillion, or 29.4 percent. Vietnam has adopted many regulations on the recovery of assets lost to corruption, but the amounts reclaimed in corruption cases remain small, as most of the money or assets gained have been used to invest in business activities, deputy chief of the Government Inspectorate Tran Duc Luong said. In addition, people who take part in corrupt acts can use sophisticated tricks, including using someone else’s name as the owner of assets and money laundering to hide the money or assets they gained illegally, making it hard to detect, Nguyen Thanh Tu, deputy head of the International Law Department of the Ministry of Justice, said. Tuoi tre news