Cases of kidnapping and selling Southeast Asian women to China are on the rise. China’s gender imbalance, resulting from three decades of one-child policy and gender-selected abortions, has caused a shortage of millions of marriage-aged women.
The abductors and Chinese traffickers usually lure young women in their twenties and thirties from the countryside with promises of well-paying jobs or marriage into rich families in big Chinese cities. Then the women are sold to Chinese peasants, who pay from $3,140 to $7,850, based on the woman’s looks, build, and nationality, Chen Shiqu, head of the anti-trafficking office at China’s Public Security Ministry, told China Daily on Dec. 2, 2011.
According to Chen, the reasons for the increase in these cases is poverty in certain Southeast Asian countries and the lack of natural barriers in the border regions between China and these countries, in particular Vietnam, Burma, and Laos.
Chinese police launched a special campaign of cracking down on human trafficking along the borders between July and September last year. During that time, police in Guangxi Province solved 30 cases of abductions and selling of Vietnamese women and children, involving 11 human trafficking groups. In all, 52 Vietnamese women and 13 Vietnamese children were rescued. 53 people were arrested.
In Yunnan Province, police solved 21 human trafficking cases, rescuing 22 Vietnamese women and arresting 17 people.
Chen did not reveal the total number of such trafficking cases, however, since 2009 police have rescued 106 abducted “foreign brides” in Hebei Province alone, he said.
Under China’s one-child policy, and using gender selective abortions, many Chinese women choose to give birth to boys over girls to carry on the family lineage.
Gender imbalance has lead to serious social problems, such as tens of millions of “leftover” Chinese men who cannot find wives.
According to the 2011 census, China’s gender ratio is 120 men to every 100 women. But in some areas it had already reached 135:100 a few years ago. With the gender gap still widening, it means that 40 million Chinese men will not be able to find Chinese wives in the near future.
Read the original Chinese article.
