Al Jazeera documentary - Children of the cannabis trade

Children of the cannabis trade investigates how Vietnamese children forced to work underground in the booming cannabis trade, held hostage by debt and poverty, are often prosecuted as criminals rather than victims of trafficking when discovered.

With the Vietnamese government now announcing a nationwide push for export labour, and the increasing demand for home-grown cannabis in the UK, the exploitation of Vietnamese children for criminal profit in the drugs industry is a disturbing trend that shows no signs of abating.

Here Mei-Ling McNamara, the producer of this episode of People & Power, writes about the making of Children of the cannabis trade.