Volunteer guards make tourist sites safer

Guards in green patrol Ho Chi Minh City streets to deter thieves and offer travelers a helping hand.
Tong Khac Trong Minh was on the way to a university entrance exam when he saw an injured woman – the victim of a recent traffic accident – lying on Tran Hung Dao Street.
He knew he would miss the exam if he stopped to help, but for the off duty tourism guard, there was no choice.
He stopped and took the woman to the hospital.
“I’ll take another examination later. I can’t ignore people who need help,” he said.
Minh is one of hundreds of tourism guards dispatched by the Ho Chi Minh City Voluntary Youth’s Public Benefit Service Company (BESCO) to improve the image of the southern hub in the eyes of local and foreign tourists.
Nguyen Van Ta, deputy director of the Public Service Enterprise, an affiliate of BESCO, said the volunteers were first commissioned in 2006 and that there are currently 248 guards assigned to ensuring “tourist safety” in and around major tourism areas in downtown HCMC.
The patrols work in shifts from early in the morning until late at night.
Known for their trademark dark green uniforms, the guards’ main tasks are to offer information to tourists and protect them against possible robbers, pickpockets and the harassment of beggars and hawkers, Ta said.
The all-volunteer force also operates a hotline, (08) 39250000, which people can call if they are in need of help.
A bite art of crime
The “Green Shirts,” as they’re known, busted 14 robberies in downtown over the first six months this year alone.
“These guys are very hospitable and helpful,” said Zeina Bitarov, a tourist from Czech Republic who visited HCMC recently.
Andreas Nilsson, a tourist from the US who visited HCMC for the first time, said it would have been very difficult to cross some streets without the tourism guards’ help.
More to do
Ta said that while the guards had accomplished many tasks, they still lacked manpower.
He said the good thing was that harassers often avoided streets that the tourism guards patrolled these days. But the flipside was that many had simply taken their shady tactics to smaller streets in areas without patrolmen.
In addition, police in HCMC have yet to identify several cyclo drivers accused of ripping off passengers.
In one such case last October, Malaysian Farah Hisamuddin and her mother took two cyclos from Ben Thanh Market to a hotel on Nguyen Hue Street, which is less than a kilometer away, at VND50,000 each.
However, they were taken to a backstreet instead, where they were ordered to pay ten times the amount previously agreed to VND500,000 each. The two women said they paid and then reported the case to the Ben Nghe Ward police in District 1.
A month later, a foreign tourist was ripped off in a similar case, but said she didn’t report it to the police as she had only a short time in the city.
Ta said his guards, and even the local police, would be unable to tackle such cases until the number of patrolmen increases.