A court in southern Vietnam handed down a 12-year jail sentence to a woman who brought several Vietnamese women including her own daughter to Malaysia to work as prostitutes.

Nguyen Thi My Nga was found guilty after a one-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday. Her accomplice Nguyen Thi Thuy Dung was sentenced to six years.

"Between June 2002 and January 2003, they brought 16 women to Malaysia, forcing them to work as prostitutes," the clerk said. "Nga's daughter was also among the victims."

State media said the women were lured with jobs opportunities and transferred to Cambodia and Thailand before being sent to Malaysia. Malaysian police later noticed the women had no regular residential papers.

The trafficking of women and children, often to work in the sex trade in some Asian countries, especially China, Cambodia and Taiwan, is a major problem in Vietnam.

No accurate figures are available for the number of victims, but Vietnamese media have reported that over the past decade around 60,000 Vietnamese women and children have been involved.