Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the
hands of traffickers Published reports & articles from 2000 to 2025 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/China.htm
The
People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a source, transit, and destination
country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced
labor and sexual exploitation. Although the majority of trafficking in the
PRC occurs within the country’s borders, there is also considerable
trafficking of PRC citizens to Africa, other parts of Asia, Europe, Latin
America, the Middle East, and North America. Women are lured through false
promises of legitimate employment and forced into commercial sexual
exploitation largely in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan. Chinese women
and men are smuggled throughout the world at great personal financial cost
and then forced into commercial sexual exploitation or exploitative labor to
repay debts to traffickers. Women and children are trafficked to China from
such countries as Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Romania, and
Ghana for purposes of forced labor, marriage, and sexual slavery. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 Check
out a later country report here or a full TIP Report here
|
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of
particular interest to you. Would you
like to write about Forced-Labor? Debt
Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to
the subject of Trafficking. Scan other
countries as well. Draw comparisons
between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. HELP for Victims International Organization for
Migration ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** A Human Harvest:
China’s organ trafficking exposed in shocking documentary that alleges the
illegal trade is now worth a staggering US$1 billion a year John Carney for
Daily Mail Australia, 6 April 2015 [accessed 20 June
2015] The damning
evidence they uncovered suggests that tens of thousands of innocent people
have been killed on demand to supply an ongoing illegal organ transplant
industry They believe the
organs come from members of the Falun Gong movement – a quasi-religious group
with millions of followers, which is banned by the Chinese Government. ‘I can testify that
this hospital forcibly removed organs, such as livers and corneas,’ says
former worker Annie of allegations that members of the banned Falun Gong
movement were killed for their organs. Some practitioners were
still breathing after their organs were removed, but they were thrown into
the hospital’s incinerator anyway.' China Arrests Nine
for Human Trafficking Xinhua News Agency,
July 25, 2007 www.christiantoday.com/article/china.arrests.nine.for.human.trafficking/11849.htm [accessed 28 January
2011] Chinese police
raided a human trafficking ring and arrested nine people for kidnapping and
selling children in northwestern and central The traffickers
snatched more than 20 children and sold some in Hongtong county in the
northern province of Shanxi, where kidnapped teenagers and children were found
working as slaves in brick kilns in a widely publicised scandal, the Xinhua
news agency said. Xinhua said two of
the kidnappers, Wang Aizhong and Li Caimei, tricked kids to get on to their
motorcycle on their way to school or broke into houses to snatch babies. The refugees forced
to be sex slaves in China Richard Spencer in [accessed 28 January
2011] The women who flee Agence France-Presse
AFP, www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2008/07/15/2003417506 [accessed 17 August
2014] Police have
arrested 18 people suspected of kidnapping children and women in southwest Trafficking of
women and children remains a problem in China with many sociologists blaming
the nation's "one child" family planning policy for fuelling the
crime. Under the policy, aimed at
controlling the world's largest population of over 1.3 billion, people who
live in urban areas are generally allowed one child, while rural families can
have two if the first is a girl. This
has put a premium on baby boys, while baby girls are often sold off as
couples try for a male heir. ***
ARCHIVES *** Apple is lobbying
against a bill aimed at stopping forced labor in China Technology, The
Washington Post, 20 November 2020 www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/?mc_cid=60f050d218&mc_eid=d85860e8b9 [accessed 23
November 2020] The Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act would require U.S. companies to guarantee they do not
use imprisoned or coerced workers from the predominantly Muslim region of
Xinjiang, where academic researchers estimate the Chinese government has
placed more than 1 million people into internment camps. Apple is heavily
dependent on Chinese manufacturing, and human rights reports have identified
instances in which alleged forced Uighur labor has been used in Apple’s
supply chain. The new bill would
make it more difficult for U.S. companies to ignore abuses taking place in
China and give U.S. authorities more power to enforce the law. One provision
in the bill requires public companies to certify to the Securities and
Exchange Commission that their products are not made using forced labor from
Xinjiang. If companies are found to have used forced labor from the region,
they could be prosecuted for securities violations. Uyghurs for sale Xiuzhong Xu , Cave , Leibold , Munro, & Ruser,
Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 1 March 2020 www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale [accessed 2 August
2020] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY -- Since 2017, more
than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have
disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’ in the far west
region of Xinjiang, in what some experts call a systematic, government-led
program of cultural genocide. Inside the camps, detainees are subjected to
political indoctrination, forced to renounce their religion and culture and,
in some instances, reportedly subjected to torture. In the name of combating
‘religious extremism’, Chinese authorities have been actively remoulding the Muslim population in the image of China’s
Han ethnic majority. The
‘re-education’
campaign appears to be entering a new phase, as government officials now
claim that all ‘trainees’ have ‘graduated’. There is mounting evidence that
many Uyghurs are now being forced to work in factories within Xinjiang. This
report reveals that Chinese factories outside Xinjiang are also sourcing
Uyghur workers under a revived, exploitative government-led labour transfer scheme. Some factories appear to be using
Uyghur workers sent directly from ‘re-education camps’. The Australian
Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has identified 27 factories in nine Chinese
provinces that are using Uyghur labour transferred
from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply
chain of 82 well-known global brands. Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that
at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to
factories through labour transfer programs under a
central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’ (援疆). It is extremely
difficult for Uyghurs to refuse or escape these work assignments, which are
enmeshed with the apparatus of detention and political indoctrination both
inside and outside of Xinjiang. In addition to constant surveillance, the
threat of arbitrary detention hangs over minority citizens who refuse their
government-sponsored work assignments. U.S. human
trafficking report: China, Iran, N. Korea worst offenders Nicholas Sakelaris,
United Press International UPI, 20 June 2019 [accessed 20 June
2019] U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said Thursday human trafficking is a strain on humanity
that violates basic human rights. He named China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba among the
worst offenders. Those countries all
scored the lowest on the 2019 Trafficking in Person report released by the
U.S. State Department. Chinese police free
more than 1,100 human trafficking victims after targeting Southeast Asian
networks Zhuang Pinghui, South China Morning Post, 21 June 2019 [accessed 24 June
2019] China said on
Friday that it had rescued 1,147 foreign victims of human trafficking,
including 1,130 women and 17 children, in a joint operation with five neighbouring countries. Gangs from China
and neighbouring countries lured victims into China
many of whom were sold as brides to Chinese men, said Guo
Lin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security. The ministry
started working with police from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and
Thailand last July and by December had detained 1,332 suspects, including 262
foreign nationals. They are accused of
634 cases of human trafficking, organising 126
fraudulent marriages and falsely obtaining marriage, employment or tourist
visas to bring victims into the country. 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: China U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/china/
[accessed 27 May
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR There is evidence
of forced labor exacted by the use of force, threats of detention or other abusive
practices against workers laboring in the camps, large industrial parks, and
residential locations in Xinjiang. There are also reports of individuals
“graduating” from “vocational training centers” and then being compelled to
work at nearby facilities or sent to factories in other parts of China. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT During the year
there were reports of children working, often unpaid, in factories, at
schools, and as athletes and models. Abuse of the student-worker system
continued. There were multiple reports of schools and local officials
improperly facilitating student labor in factories producing electronics and
apparel. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 26 April
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? While workers in China
are afforded important protections under existing laws, violations of labor
and employment regulations are widespread. Local CCP officials have long been
incentivized to focus on economic growth rather than the enforcement of labor
laws. Exploitative employment practices such as wage theft, excessive
overtime, student labor, and unsafe working conditions are pervasive in many
industries. Forced labor and trafficking are also common, frequently
affecting rural migrants, and Chinese nationals are similarly trafficked
abroad. Forced labor is the norm in prisons and other facilities for
criminal, political, and religious detainees. Since 2018, according to
research by scholar Adrian Zenz, authorities in
Xinjiang have begun to place minority populations in different forms of
forced or low-paid labor, including workshops linked to internment camps and
large industrial parks or village-based factories for those not detained. Ex-Detainee
Describes Torture In China's Xinjiang Re-Education Camp Rob Schmitz, National
Public Radio NPR, 13 November 2018 www.npr.org/2018/11/13/666287509/ex-detainee-describes-torture-in-chinas-xinjiang-re-education-camp [accessed 22
November 2018] The ethnic Kazakh
grew up in the mountains of China's rural Xinjiang region, just miles away
from the border with Kazakhstan. When he was 11 years old, his parents died.
A man from his village lured the young orphan to a nearby city with the
promise of work and then sold him to a criminal gang of ethnic Uighurs, the
predominant ethnic minority in Xinjiang, who managed a network of child
thieves throughout China. "There were a
lot of other children who had been kidnapped," Samarkand recalls.
"Most of the others were trained to be pickpockets. They wanted me to be
a beggar, so they injected me with medication that made my legs go numb. They
held me down and broke both of my legs." Samarkand says they
took him, newly crippled, to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to beg on
the streets. By the time he turned 16, Samarkand says gang leaders had
trained him to sell crystal methamphetamine. That's when police caught him
selling drugs, broke up the syndicate and sent him and 40 other kidnapped
orphans to a rehabilitation center in the northeastern Chinese city of
Tianjin. The police paid for multiple surgeries to help heal Samarkand's legs
before sending the boy to a boarding school in Xinjiang. Now 30, Samarkand
walks with a limp and still bears the scars of his youth up and down his
legs. He says those Chinese police in Guangzhou were the only people who had
helped him after his parents died. Police free 16,517
women and children from human traffickers in Beijing,China John Burger, www.examiner.com/human-trafficking-in-dallas/police-bust-frees-16-517-women-and-children-from-human-traffickers-beijing-china [accessed 29 January
2011] MY TAKE ON THE STORY - The main problem
with combating traffickers in Freeing 16,517
slaves is a BIG deal. Arresting nearly 16,000 suspects is huge in the fight
against traffickers. What happens to these suspects and the number that that
are prosecuted will determine the greater long-term effect these arrests will
have against human trafficking. With a major bust like this in Taking Down Child
Trafficking Rings Web Editor: english.cri.cn/8706/2010/09/26/2041s596417.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] Zhao Xiaoyi was
another suspected human trafficker the police seized in the recent crack down.
In the police interrogation room, the man sounded remorseful. "When I broke
into the room, I could see the despair, the terror in her eyes. I will never
forget the way she looked at me. I didn't dare to look back. I just couldn't
look at her." Zhao Xiaoyi was
describing how a mother looked when he broke into her home and abducted her
baby. It was on the afternoon of December 16, 2009, and Zhao and four of his
accomplices knocked on the door of Ms. Shi's home on "I heard
someone at the door and I asked who it was. He said he was a neighbor and
wanted to borrow some kitchen ware." Ms. Shi opened the
door, holding her ten-month-old baby in her arms. "Immediately
as I opened the door, three men broke in. They pushed me inside. One of them
covered my mouth while the other two held me down to prevent me from moving.
I was terrified. I pleaded them to take anything they wanted except for my
baby. All they wanted was my baby. I tried to stop them but they beat me and
tied my hands and feet. Then they wrapped my baby in a piece of cloth and
vanished." In broad daylight
Zhao had broken into Ms. Shi's home and taken her baby. Three Chinese
jailed for human trafficking www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=164179 [accessed 29 January
2011] Summing up its judgment,
the court noted that the prosecution had been able to prove its case beyond
reasonable doubt. It held that James and Sam engaged in human trafficking by
obtaining tickets and other travelling documents for the victims and through
deceits, lured them to Ghana to work in a restaurant, which never existed. According to the
court the victims on their arrival had their passports and other travelling
documents confiscated by James who in turn threatened, deceived and exploited
their vulnerability. According to the court proceeds of the sex trade were
used to purchase contraceptives, douches and other materials to facilitate
their trade. It dismissed claims by the convicts that the victims and other
Chinese nationals meet at the restaurants to sing. "During the singing
that was when the men selected the victims for sex," the court noted. It therefore
concluded that the convicts through their intentions induced the victims into
sex trade and declined to give them their travelling documents as well as
proceed from the sex trade. Original reporting
in Cantonese by Ho Shan and in Mandarin by Xi Wang, Radio Free Asia RFA,
2009-05-21 www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinatrafficking-05212009114049.html [accessed 29 January
2011] But parents in the
southern city of Nanning said 200 children were still missing in their
region, and police had prevented parents from staging a public protest to
draw attention to the problem. DEMAND FOR CHILDREN - She said boys
were often sold to people as sons, while the girls ended up filling a
traditional rural role, that of daughters-in-law who are raised in the same
household before marriage to one of the family's sons. NK Defectors
Describe Horrors of Human Trafficking The Dong-A ILBO, May
01, 2009 english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=060000&biid=2009050137348 [accessed 29 January
2011] Bang Mi-sun, who
came to the South in 2004, spoke first. She said she fled the North to feed
her two children after her husband starved to death in 2002. “I thought that if
I went to China, I could eat heartily and lead a better life than in North
Korea. What waited for me was a wretched life,” she said. “I was sold to a disabled Chinese man for
585 dollars at a human trafficking market and resold to another man.” Bang was caught by
Chinese police and repatriated to North Korea. There, she was subjected to
severe corporal punishment and forced labor.
“I was put in a detention camp and flogged. I was battered so badly
that I cannot walk well now,” she said. Trafficking victims
try to remake lives Monica Rhor,
Associated Press AP, Houston, April 13, 2009 austin.twcnews.com/content/news/237679/trafficking-victims-try-to-remake-lives [accessed 17 August
2014] nwasianweekly.com/2009/04/trafficking-victims-try-to-remake-lives/ [accessed 30 January
2019] Like dozens of
other workers from Vietnam and China, Tiep Ngo had been lured to the Daewoosa
clothing factory in American Samoa by hollow promises of good pay. She left
behind her child, her husband and her parents and paid $5,000 for her job
contract, only to be starved, beaten and cheated of wages. For nearly two years, Ngo labored in the
stifling, overcrowded factory, subsisting on meager portions of rice and
cabbage and longing for her family. Human trafficker
sentenced to death in China The Australian, 18
December 2008 www.missionandjustice.org/human-trafficker-sentenced-to-death-in-china/ [accessed 17 August
2014] The traffickers had
promised their victims jobs packaging tea and sunflower seeds, even taking
them to "a fake factory where the ring members pretended to be managers
and workers", Xinhua said. The
victims were then sent to other provinces on the pretence of purchasing raw
materials, but were sold as "wives" to local people, the agency
added. Officials crack
down on human trafficking ring Central News Agency
CNA, Oct 10, 2008 www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/10/2003425457 [accessed 29 January
2011] The National
Immigration Agency (NIA) recently cracked down on a Taiwanese human
trafficking ring that was smuggling children from In its
investigation, the agency discovered that the crime ring had bought the
identity of Taiwanese children from parents who were in financial difficulty. The parents sold
their children’s IDs for NT$90,000 each, the agency said. The investigators had discovered that the
crime ring employed the strategy seven times in the first half of this year,
smuggling 18 children to the US. Police foil human
trafficking in Golden Triangle www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/12/content_7297128.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] The migrants,
hailing from villages near Liaoning province's Chaoyang and Dandong - the main
border between China and North Korea - were discovered in Xishaungbanna, a
part of southwestern Yunnan province close to the porous borders with Myanmar
and Laos. The migrants, who
have now been sent back to their villages, were brought to Yunnan with
promises of jobs but were being tricked to cross the border by casino
operators in Myanmar, where they would be forced to construct roads, an
unnamed official was quoted as saying. Burmese brides for
sale Way Yan, Mizzima
News, Ruili, 28 October 2008 www.bnionline.net/index.php/feature/mizzima/5247-burmese-brides-for-sale-.html [accessed 18 August
2014] Wah Wah was one of
the women that Ma Phyu and her gang had sold into slavery. Wah Wah was sold to a Chinese man living in
Sandong, near Beijing, at the price tag of Chinese RMB 20,000 (approximately
US$ 2,900). A few weeks later, Wah Wah managed to flee from the clutches of
her buyer and made her way back to Ruili earlier this month. The hapless young lady had nowhere else to
go but to return back to her perpetrators, and Ma Phyu was happy when her
commodity arrived back in her hands for resale. However, when she tried to
sell her to another Chinese man, Wah Wah vehemently refused. But the traffickers, having already struck
a deal and received some advance money, tried to force Wah Wah to accept her
newest companion. As dusk fell over
Ruili on that fateful day, Wah Wah was taken by taxi along the road to
Namkhan, Burma, a few miles away. Accompanying her in the vehicle were
several members of the human trafficker's family. Eventually, they stopped the taxi next to a
paddy field beside the highway in the vicinity of Man Heiro, still in Burmese
territory and about 20 miles from Ruili.
"Before leaving Ruili, they were drunk with beer. She was taken
to a paddy field near the highway. Then Kyaw Swa started raping her. After
that, Bo Bo stabbed her repeatedly. She died from five stab wounds. Then her
corpse was left in the nearby drainage," recalls a source from the
Chinese police investigation team of the incident. Behind the scenes
in Beijing Catherine Sampson,
Guardian, 3 August 2008 www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/03/china.olympicgames2008 [accessed 29 January
2011] At the bottom of
the heap are the street children. At a residential school, I met some of the
children plucked from the streets. An 11-year-old boy who preferred that I
call him by his English name, Nicholas, told me that he had lived with his
younger brother and older sister in Henan. His father was frequently in
trouble and a mother was both pitifully poor and unable to cope with her
uncontrollable children. One day the boss of a beggar gang arrived scouting
for children. He offered the mother 3 yuan (20p) per day per child if she
would allow him to take them away to beg, which she did. He said he would
hand over this money in a lump sum once a year at Chinese New Year. During the months
that followed, Nicholas said, he earned between 100 and 600 yuan per day
(between £7 and £40) for his boss. Nicholas kept trying to run away. When the
boss beat his younger brother for not earning enough, Nicholas swore at his
boss. Because of this, when the boss took the children home at spring festival,
he gave Nicholas' mother only 30 yuan (£2) for her son's labour. - htsc Birth Controlled: Juli Weiner,
Huffington Post, July 14, 2008 www.huffingtonpost.com/juli-weiner/birth-controlled-emchinas_b_112530.html [accessed 29 January
2011] The film
investigates human trafficking panoramically, following everyone from the
traffickers themselves (both reformed and active), parents searching for
their kidnapped son, parents trying to sell their daughter, a boy who himself
was kidnapped, and the detective who's working a seven month old case with
few clues, no witnesses, and no leads. But the most pervasive of any facet of
the trade is the furtive Chinese government, which does everything in its
(far-reaching, for sure) power to silence the families of over 70,000
children a year who are being "snatched from the streets." Talk outlines risks
in international adopting Ashton Shurson, The
Daily Iowan, Issue date: 3/25/08 Section: Metro At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4
September 2011] In November 2005,
police in Organ trafficking:
a fast-expanding black market IHS Jane's, 05 March
2008 www.traffickingproject.org/2008/03/organ-trafficking-fast-expanding-black.html [accessed 26 June
2013] China, Children rescued
from human-trafficking gang Xinhua News Agency,
Xichuan, Henan Province, 2008-01-03 www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/03/content_6368154.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] "The gang
members had abducted nine children, all boys between two and eight years old,
since April, and sold them to rural families," said Wang Jianmin,
Nanyang Municipal Commission of Politics and Law secretary. He told Xinhua the family gang was led by
Ye Zengxi, 55, his son and daughter-in-law. Also involved was Ye's brother Ye
Xiaolin. The gang used Ye's 12-year-old nephew to lure other children away
from their parents' view with toys or food, and then whisked them away by
motorbike. Eight of the children were
sold to rural families who wanted boys, while another was held captive
awaiting a buyer before the police rescue. Action plan to
fight human trafficking finalized www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-12/13/content_6317457.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] Ministry figures
show that about 2,000 to 3,000 cases of women and children being sold are
reported to police across the country every year. The International Labor
Organization estimates the number of trafficking victims in China ranges from
10,000 to 20,000 a year. Those trafficked
are usually victims of sexual and labor exploitation; and the issue received
particular attention after the exposure of a brick kiln slave labor scandal
in Shanxi Province this summer. Official figures in
August showed that 1,340 people, about 400 of whom were children or mentally
handicapped, had been rescued from forced labor since June, many of them in
Shanxi. Du Wednesday
reiterated that there would be zero tolerance for the crime and called for
more cooperation among neighboring countries as trafficking is an
international issue. Last year, 209
people who were trafficked to China were repatriated to Vietnam and Myanmar,
according to the ministry. Girls and women in Yunnan Province and the Guangxi
Zhuang Autonomous Region also face the risk of being abducted to neighboring
countries such as Thailand for sex exploitation. Ben Blanchard,
Reuters, www.reuters.com/article/idUSPEK11308820071212 [accessed 29 January
2011] There has been a rise
in trafficking cases involving Trafficking in
China Mark P. Lagon,
Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Congressional
Human Rights Caucus Briefing, 2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rm/07/94466.htm [accessed 18 July
2013] Early this summer reports
emerged of over one thousand farmers, teenagers and children, including some
who were mentally handicapped, forced to work for little or no pay in
scorching brick kilns, enduring beatings and confinement in worse than
prison-like conditions. This was a form of modern day slavery that shocked
not only the international community, but prompted an outcry among Chinese
citizens and a forceful reaction from the authorities. The trade of women
and girls for sexual exploitation is another clear trafficking challenge for
the Chinese government. Although prostitution is illegal, the burgeoning
illicit sex industry creates a vulnerability for sex trafficking. Women and
children are trafficked into the country from North Korea, Vietnam, Burma,
Mongolia, and Thailand. Chinese women are also trafficked abroad for sexual
exploitation. The government's main challenges in this area include their
punishment of victims, poor victim protection services, and lack of
transparency in criminal law enforcement by not fully disclosing what the
government is doing to enforce laws against TIP. Human trafficking
documentary premieres in Beijing humantrafficking.org,
October 04, 2007 -- Adapted from "Human trafficking documentary
premieres in www.humantrafficking.org/updates/715 [accessed 29 January
2011] uk.reuters.com/article/idUKPEK21207020070921 [accessed 26 April
2020] In China, where the
30-minute documentary will be shown several times on MTV China's channel in
October and November, human trafficking cases involving sex and forced labor
are increasing, officials have said.
Chinese police detained 47 people accused of trafficking babies
earlier in the month and rescued dozens of infants being traded because of
rural families' desire for children in a country that strictly enforces
population control. This followed a
scandal earlier in the year involving hundreds of farmers, teenagers and
children being kidnapped, beaten and forced to work in brick kilns. Goff said one of
the most important underlying causes for human trafficking was 'demand'. 'The demand that we all represent for
cheaper and cheaper consumer products and labor and the demand for paid sex,'
he said. Gang trafficking
over 60 babies cracked Xinhua News Agency, www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-09/07/content_6090460.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] Lang also confessed
that they usually buy a baby girl at 1,500 yuan (US$200) but sell it for
8,000 yuan, while a baby boy usually costs them 8,000 yuan and can fetch
20,000 yuan for them. Investigations found
that the gang of human traders headed by Shen and Lang have bought 27 newborn
babies in Yunnan during 16 trips and then sold them in Shandong. Forty out of more than 60 babies who were
trafficked by the gang have been rescued by police so far, while police were
trying to find the others. Human trafficking www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2007-09/06/content_6085316.htm [accessed 18 August 2014] Cases of forced
labor and sexual exploitation have been on the rise, posing a threat to
social stability and our nation's welfare.
In a worst scenario, hundreds of migrant workers and under-age people
were found in June having been trafficked to work in illegal brick kilns in
Shanxi and Henan provinces. The plight
of those victims drew much concern from the government and the society, and
triggered a massive national crackdown on illegal brick kilns. Panel set to target
human trafficking news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/04/content_6658574.htm [accessed 18 July
2013 -- HT] www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-09/04/content_6077823.htm [accessed 30 January
2019] The government
plans to set up the first national mechanism for combating trafficking to
protect women and children from forced labor and prostitution. The joint effort by 21 ministries -
including the ministries of public security, labor and social security,
education and supervision - aims to provide sustainable and long-term
solutions to human trafficking. It
will be led by a leading group reporting directly to the State Council, Yin
Jianzhong, a senior official of the anti-human trafficking office of the
Ministry of Public Security, said.
Meanwhile, the National Plan of Action on Anti-trafficking of Women
and Children (2008-12), which is being drafted, will be unveiled by the end
of this year, Yin said. More forced into
prostitution, labor www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/27/content_5444409.htm [accessed 18 July
2013] Forced labor and
sexual exploitation have increased as the trend in human trafficking in The number of
forced laborers and the sexually exploited has risen partly because of the
loopholes in the legal and labor systems, he added. The Criminal Law on human trafficking
protects women and children only and leaves out grown-up and teen males. It
doesn't have provisions for punishing those trafficking people for forced
labor or prostitution, Yin said. 'Alarming' Trade in
Human Organ Trafficking Reuters, www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/07/us-crime-trafficking-philippines-idUSMAN28233220070607 [accessed 13 June
2013] The International
Organization for Migration (IOM) expressed alarm on Thursday over rising cases
of trade in human organs in Reed said many
trafficking cases in Asia "end up in situations of forced begging,
delinquency, adoption, false marriage, or most recently, as victims of the
thriving trade in human organs".
He said trafficking for organs was on the rise in China and in many
impoverished states in Southeast Asia, like Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam. Group works to
rescue victims of human trafficking Khun Sam, BurmaNet
News, 2 Mar 2007 www.burmanet.org/news/2007/03/02/irrawaddy-group-works-to-rescue-victims-of-human-trafficking-khun-sam/ [accessed 29 January
2011] www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=6783 [accessed 27 May
2021] Currently, we are
trying to rescue three women who disappeared after being lured to jobs in
China,” Ja Awng told The Irrawaddy on Friday. According to Ja
Awng, 26-year-old Maran Hkawn, a mother of three children, and 37-year-old Ma
Lum, a mother of four children, who both lived in the village of Mung Baw,
Namdu Township, northern Shan State, were lured by a job offer from a Chinese
national to work in a restaurant somewhere near the border and left for China
in June 2006. Since then the two have disappeared and neither of their
families know their whereabouts. Another 23-year-old
Kachin woman, Mun Ja of Kutkhai Township, who worked at a Chinese restaurant
in a village near Rulli in Yunnan Province, disappeared in early January this
year along with the owners of the restaurant. Vendors reportedly said the
owner had taken the woman to another location in China. Ja Awng said many
human trafficking cases take place on the China-Burma border. She said the
KWA rescued two victims last year. The KWA and the KIO gave 8,000 yuan (US
$1,032) to Chinese police to rescue a 3-year-old Burmese girl from a Chinese
house in a village near Rulli, she said. Victims of Human
Trafficking Speak The Dong-A ILBO,
December 15, 2006 english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2006121564548 [accessed 29 January
2011] WOMEN WHO ARE SOLD
INTO SLAVERY
- Ms. G (age: 26), a former nurse from the North who made it across the
border to Protecting young
women from human trafficking in Viet Nam Steve Nettleton,
UNICEF, LANG SON, www.unicef.org/infobycountry/vietnam_37406.html [accessed 29 January
2011] www.unicef.org/protection/vietnam_37406.html [accessed 26 April
2020] In 1991, Phuong was lured to the border by traffickers and
taken against her will to China, where she was dragged to a house in a small
town and sold to become an older man’s wife. “I didn’t know how
old he was or the name of the place we lived,” she said. “I lost my freedom.
I had to go everywhere with his family or else I was locked in a room. I had
to work hard. When I was tired or sick, they didn’t let me stop working. Lien Chau, Thanhnien
News, August 28, 2006 www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=19385 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Trafficked young
girls have been forced into the sex trade or forced to marry older men. Vietnamese and Chinese police raided more
than 30 human trafficking gangs in July and August alone this year. Three Women
Arrested in Muse for Human Trafficking Narinjara News NN,
7/23/2006 bnionline.net/index.php/news/narinjara/279-three-women-arrested-in-muse-for-human-trafficking.html [accessed 18 August
2014] According to
confirmed sources, some human trafficking syndicates have been dispatching
young women from Xinhua News Agency,
July 13, 2006 english.people.com.cn/200607/13/eng20060713_282517.html [accessed 29 January
2011] The Chinese
government announced Wednesday it has submitted for approving a plan to fight
human trafficking to meet its obligations to a 2004 agreement among six Asian
countries. At a meeting in
Beijing of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking
(COMMIT), Wan Yan, a member of the COMMIT China office, said, "We have
submitted the action plan and are awaiting approval. If passed, the plan will
help to clarify the responsibilities of all the relevant ministries in
combating human trafficking." The governments of
China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam adopted a comprehensive
and strategic Sub-regional Plan of Action to jointly combat human trafficking
in 2004, under which member states each devise a national plan of action. More co-operation
needed in war on human trafficking At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4
September 2011] Reviewing the human
trafficking trend in the region, While in the past
women and children have been reported as trafficked victims, Thatun said that
boys and men have also been identified as victims as well into the sex trade,
heavy labour, begging, marriage, and the fishing industry. VN, Le Hung At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4
September 2011] More than 550
Vietnamese women and children were trafficked to The police said the
victims were deceived by members of organised crime gangs in both countries
who promised them good jobs in big cities in Viet Nam or abroad. But many of
them ended up being sold to brothels in China. China for global
cooperation to fight human trafficking Beijing, 6 June 2006 zeenews.india.com/news/world/china-for-global-cooperation-to-fight-human-trafficking_300500.html [accessed 18 August
2014] Xinhua News Agency, news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/07/content_4517342.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] en.ce.cn/World/Asia-Pacific/200605/07/t20060507_6891299.shtml [accessed 30 January
2019] Since the signing
of the historic COMMIT Memorandum of Understanding in Yangon, Myanmar in
October 2004, by Ministers of the six countries, the Governments have been
active in laying the foundation for a network of cooperation to stop
traffickers and prosecute them, protect victims of trafficking and assist
them return safely home, and launch efforts to prevent others from sharing
the same fate. Secret Chinese
Concentration Camp Revealed Brian Marple, The
Epoch Times, Mar 10, 2006 www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-3-10/39083.html [accessed 29 January
2011] www.linkedin.com/pulse/secret-chinese-concentration-camp-revealed-pj-wilcox-author [accessed 8
September 2016] The Epoch Times was
granted an in-depth interview with the journalist described in this report. A
former Chinese journalist that worked for an overseas television station has
revealed in an interview the existence of a secret concentration camp
dedicated to the persecution – and possibly organ-harvesting – of Falun Gong
practitioners. The violent machine Harry Wu, Founder
& Executive Director, Laogai Research Foundation, New Internationalist
#337, August 2001 www.newint.org/features/2001/08/05/violent/ [accessed 29 January
2011] As a survivor of 19
years’ imprisonment in a Chinese labour reform camp, a mechanized system for
physically, mentally and spiritually crushing human beings, I feel compelled
to investigate and decry them. History dictates that all authoritarian
regimes must maintain a mechanism to suppress political dissent and
consolidate control. In China today this is the Laogai – an institution of
fear, control and modern-day slavery. From the Mandarin, the word ‘Laogai’
translates literally as ‘reform through labour’ and describes a system of
forced-labour camps spanning China from the highly industrialized
prison-factories of the eastern coastal cities to the isolated, fenceless
farms of the west. Combating Human
Trafficking in China: Domestic and International Efforts [PDF] Abraham Lee,
Testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on [accessed 18 August
2014] III. REFUGEE
VULNERABILITY
- The combination of extreme hunger, potential economic opportunity and
easier access motivates refugees to abandon family and risk their lives to
enter Combating Human
Trafficking in China: Domestic and International Efforts [PDF] Ambassador John R.
Miller, Testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on [accessed 18 August
2014]] Ms. Cha went to
look for work in China’s One Child
Policy Exacerbates Slavery, Panel Concludes Monisha Bansal,
Cybercast News Service CNS News, March 07, 2006 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4
September 2011] The Chinese government
is making progress in combating human trafficking, but its one-child policy
is still responsible for a gender disparity that is encouraging Chinese men
to purchase young women from Trader denies
recruiting workers for prostitution John Ravelo, www.zoominfo.com/p/Jim-Barry/595655311 [accessed 20 January
2016] www.saipantribune.com/index.php/a46b3e7d-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e/ [accessed 8
September 2016] Barry said all the
workers were promised legitimate jobs with pay rate of $7 per hour.When they
arrived, though, the defendant allegedly made them work as prostitutes. Although the women
wanted to leave, they were allegedly forced to stay, as the defendant told
them they have no way of settling their debts and purchasing airfares back to
China except by working as prostitutes. Facing the future
with 40 million bachelors Hamish McDonald,
Correspondent in www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/09/1078594367697.html?from=storyrhs [accessed 29 January
2011] China already has a
significant problem in trafficking of women and girls, internally and from
countries such as Burma. Many North Korean women who flee to China are
captured by gangs and sold as brides to Chinese farmers. Boys are also kidnapped and sold to
families without male heirs for adoption.
Police said they had freed 42,215 kidnapped women and children in the
past two years. How Can I be Sold
Like This?
[PDF] Donna M. Hughes,
National Review, July 19, 2005 www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/trafficking_nk_refugees.pdf [accessed 29 April
2012] Women and children
are increasingly the majority of refugees crossing the river into Border police
rescue 37 in anti-human trafficking drive Xinhua News Agency, www.humanrights-china.org/news/2005-7-13/2005713104306.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] The women were
saved thanks to a joint operation between Guangxi and STRONG EFFORT
NEEDED TO GAIN CHINESE WORKER RIGHTS Harry Kelber, The
Labor Educator, February 25, 2005 www.laboreducator.org/strikebag.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] [scroll down] STRONG EFFORT NEEDED
TO GAIN CHINESE WORKER RIGHTS - CECC Roundtable
Panelists Discuss Issue Of Forced Labor In China's Laogai Laogai Research
Foundation LRF, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4
September 2011] When a product is
labeled "Made in Activists decry
brutal Chinese factories, WalMart, Nike sited Gay Alcorn, Reuters,
At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 31 August
2011] The report, Made In
China, investigated 16 companies including Nike, the world’s largest
retailer; Wal-Mart; and Timberland. At
a Qin Shi factory where Wal-Mart handbags were made, undercover investigators
found young women working up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week for 3 cents
an hour, and almost half were in debt to the company because of deductions
for board. Most workers were young
women, with a Nike contractor in a Lizhan factory advertising for females
only, age 18-25. Complaining about conditions or getting pregnant led to
sackings. American partners are more
than willing to look the other way, Mr. Wu said. Program Launched To
Stem Kidnapping Of Girls Xinhua News Agency, news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/04/content_2547796.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] english.sina.com/china/1/2005/0204/20586.html [accessed 11 July
2017] A new program to
prevent the kidnapping of Chinese girls and young women with the purpose of
exploitation in labor has been inaugurated in Louisa Lim, BBC
News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4232231.stm [accessed 29 January
2011] The report says some of the babies had been abandoned by their parents, but increasing numbers of children are also being abducted - particularly from migrant worker families who cannot afford childcare. Seduction, Sale & Slavery: Trafficking In Women & Children For Sexual Exploitation In Southern Africa - 3rd Edition, [PDF] Jonathan Martens,
Maciej ‘Mac’ Pieczkowski, Bernadette van Vuuren-Smyth, International
Organization for Migration (IOM) Regional Office for Southern Africa, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4
September 2011] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The major findings may be summarized as follows: Triad-linked Chinese or Taiwanese agents recruit Chinese women by promising work in Chinese-owned businesses in South Africa, or the prospect of studying in English language schools. Women may even pay to be smuggled out of China. When recruited to work in Chinese-owned restaurants, clubs, or on fishing vessels in South Africa, they are forced into sex work indefinitely. If they come to South Africa to study English, they are often allowed to complete their courses before being told that they have a US$12 500 debt that they must repay by doing sex work. In either case, these Chinese women have no freedom of movement, and their traffickers take their earnings. China executes 3
baby traffickers www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/11/content_399387.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] Xinhua News Agency,
June 2, 2004 english.china.org.cn/english/China/97138.htm [accessed 26 April
2020] A few hours after she
was trapped by human traffickers, Chen Jing was able to see through their
plot, sought help from police and escaped.
The 15-year-old girl from Renshou county in the outback of the
southwestern Sichuan Province told Xinhua in an interview Tuesday that a
booklet had taught her how to tell devils from the kind-hearted and how to
help herself in case of emergency. The
booklet, which tells in simple words and vivid pictures how rural girls
should protect themselves from human traffickers, is compiled by the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), All-China Women's Federation and the
Ministry of Public Security and is provided for free to country girls like
Chen Jing who want to find a job in cities. "I sensed
danger when I was escorted to a train with an unknown destination, and was
told they would keep my documents and money for me -- the booklet says human
traffickers always do that," said Chen.
The alert girl managed to borrow a cell phone from a stranger, reported
to the police and was saved before the train started. "I just followed the instructions in
the booklet, and was lucky to survive," said Chen, who has just found a
job as housemaid for an urban family in Chengdu. Human Trafficking
an Increasing Problem in Han Qing, Radio Free
en.epochtimes.com/news/4-3-16/20435.html [accessed 29 January
2011] Human trafficking
of women and children in More Than 200
Children Missing in The Epoch Times,
Translated from the Chinese Edition, May 14, 2004 en.epochtimes.com/news/4-5-14/21423.html [accessed 29 January
2011] Since 2001, almost
200 children, mainly boys aged between one and six years old, have gone
missing in Slave Labor in Falun Dafa
Clearwisdom.net, 2002 to 2009 clearwisdom.net/emh/129/ [accessed 29 January
2011] [ Links to articles
re: Forced labor camps in Slave Labor
Experience at Forced Labor Camps uygurletter.blogspot.com/2004/03/slave-labor-experience-at-forced-labor.html [accessed 29 January
2011] I profess not to
know a great deal about either the Falun Movement, it's practices or
treatment by officialdom but I did find this first hand experience of a Falun
Dafa practioner inside Chinese jails rather an eye opener. Not because it
demonstrates the lack of rights afforded political prisoners as I think we
all know that exists but for the forced labour being used to produce goods
for "free world" companies. WHAT I'M READING
TODAY: State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2003 Adam Hersh,
Globalize This! -- posted February 26, 2004 plec.blogspot.com/2004/02/what-im-reading-today-state-department.html [accessed 29 January
2011] Here's what I found
out about what is going on in Slavery,
Prostitution Effect of LifeSiteNews, www.lifesitenews.com/news/slavery-prostitution-effect-of-chinas-one-child-policy [accessed 6 January
2015] "Such serious
gender disproportion poses a major threat to the healthy, harmonious and
sustainable growth of the nation's population and would trigger such crimes
and social problems as abduction of women and prostitution," Li said.
His predictions are already reality -- police there freed more than 42,000
kidnapped women and children in 2001 and 2002. Many were believed to be sold
for the purpose of prostitution or as slave wives. Chinese officials say they have no
intention of changing the one-child policy -- a measure put in place to
ensure the population remains below 1.6 billion until 2050. The Sky is Falling Hannah Beech, Xupu,
Time Magazine, July 28, 2003 www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047279,00.html [accessed 29 January
2011] content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047279,00.html [accessed 26 April
2020] Hundreds of girls
have been kidnapped from Xupu in the past few years, including more than a
dozen from Hu's village of barely 200. Some girls?lured into cars by promises
of candy or fancy clothes or merely a joyride to the city?are never heard
from again. Others, like Hu, eventually find their way back home. But Hu was
so traumatized by what had happened that she refused to leave her house for
more than a year after her return, spending her days sequestered in a dark
room filled with piles of coal. Finally, she fled last year to the boomtown
of Shenzhen, where she now toils in an electronics sweatshop. Although the
16-hour shifts are exhausting, they're nothing like the conditions at the
brothel, where she was forced to service a stream of men for no pay. How Wes Vernon,
NewsMax.com, Jan. 11, 2003 [accessed 6 January
2015] [scroll down to 12-18-2008 01:04 PM] For years, he had
been one of the estimated 50 million blue uniformed “troublemakers” who had
worked in the camps under totally inhumane conditions. Some of them literally
worked themselves to death. The forced
labor had turned out for the American market such items as rubber-soled
shoes, boots, kitchenware, toys, tools, men’s and women’s clothing, and
sporting goods. 'GETTING WISE' - A manager at
Shanghai’s Laodong Machinery Plant, where hand tools were made, boasted that
because the U.S. Congress had recently made “quite a fuss” about the prison
camps, he and his bosses had devised a way to get around the problem. “We always go through the import-export
company,” he said, meaning they set up companies to handle the shipment of
goods. That way, as Wu explains it, “nobody quite knows where the goods came
from. Chinese Police
Rescue Nine Children from Traffickers Radio Free en.epochtimes.com/news/3-11-15/14732.html [accessed 29 January
2011] MIGRANT WORKERS'
CHILDREN TARGETED BY KIDNAPPERS - Police in the southern Chinese city of Dying to Leave Thirteen, www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/dying-to-leave/human-trafficking-worldwide/china/1451/ [accessed 26
December 2010] www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/human-trafficking-worldwide-china/1451/ [accessed 18
February 2018] VICTIMS - Chinese women
and children are trafficked for sexual exploitation to North America, Europe,
and other Asian countries. In the Many
internationally trafficked Chinese men and women are also subjected to forced
labor worldwide. They typically work in sweatshops or restaurants in
slave-like conditions in order to pay off debts to smugglers. Internal
trafficking also takes place in People's Daily,
September 25, 2002 www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Sep/44041.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] Many of the women
are bought by farmers who cannot find wives in the normal way. But recently
the trade has taken a far more disturbing turn with women and children being
sold into prostitution, said UNICEF official and senior project coordinator,
David Parker. The so called
"Elimination of Trafficking: Zero Tolerance Plan," which is set to
last four years, will seek to find an effective working system to eliminate
the "demand market" of population marketing through education, case
reports and crackdowns, said Zhu Yantao, an official with the Ministry of
Public Security. Harsh Chinese
Reality Feeds a Black Market in Women Elisabeth Rosenthal,
The New York Times, June 25, 2001 www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/reality_feeds.html [accessed 29 January
2011] When a man offered
Feng Chenyun temporary work in another city, she jumped at the chance. Barely
literate and desperately poor, Ms. Feng had two children, 10 and 16, and it
was nearly impossible to scrape together school fees from her small plot of
rice and rape seed. Her husband was
working as a migrant laborer 1,000 miles away, in Guangdong Province. At 37,
she had never left her county in Sichaun Province and was feeling restless. "I went with
him because he was offering me work," she said, recounting from her
small dark home the start of a tale that still brings tears three years
later. "I just wanted to get out and earn a bit of money." Instead, Ms. Feng
was kidnapped, drugged, placed on a train and sold for about $1,500 as a
bride to a brick maker in faraway Xinjiang Province—becoming one of the tens
if not hundreds of thousands of poor Chinese women who are sold on a black
market each year. Hannah Beech,
Xicheng,Time Pacific, January 29, 2001 | NO. 4 www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047449,00.html [accessed 29 January
2011] content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047449,00.html [accessed 26 April
2020] Girls, two-week-old
bundles with shocks of black hair, cost $25 each. Boys, traditionally
favored, sell for $50. The chicken trade, by contrast, brings in only $2 for
the plumpest fowl. In a mountainous region where drought has stymied farmers,
the baby trade is feeding citizens in a way that Yunnan province's cracked
red earth no longer can. Some mothers, who have no knowledge of birth
control, are giving up "extra" children that violate the nation's
family-planning policy. Others, from the most desperately poor villages, have
turned into full-time baby machines, squeezing out children-for-sale in the
shadows of their dirt-floor shacks. "Before, we made money by raising
pigs," says a 23-year-old woman who sold two children just days after
they were born. "But it takes a year to raise a pig and it's expensive
to feed. A baby takes only nine months and doesn't cost any money. Millions Suffer in
Sex Slavery United Press
International UPI, Chicago, April 24, 2001 humanrightscivics1.wikifoundry.com/page/Sex+Slaves [accessed 6 January
2015] Statistical
estimates indicate 300,000 women have been sold into the sex trade in Western
Europe in the last 10 years, and since 1990, 80,000 women and children from Myanmar
(formerly Burma), Cambodia, Laos and China
have been sold into Thailand's sex industry. BBC News, 28 April,
2000 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/729337.stm [accessed 29 January
2011] Police in Vietnamese Women
Are Kidnapped Samantha Marshall,
The Wall Street Journal, www.wright.edu/~tdung/bride_vn.htm [accessed 29 January
2011] www.wsj.com/articles/SB933633318281546817 [accessed 26 April
2020] Jobless and
destitute, Nguyen Thi Hoan felt her luck was about to change. She had just
arrived here one sultry June morning two years ago, and almost at once a
kindly woman offered her a job in a candy factory. It was a trap. Within hours, Miss Hoan was
spirited across the Vietnam-China border at Lang Son, 100 miles away, by one
of the gangs that kidnap young women and sell them to be brides in China. For several days,
the 22-year-old was trucked and traded around southern New weapons against
child trafficking in Asia International Labour
Organisation ILO, WORLD OF WORK, No. 19, March 1997 www.ageofconsent.com/comments/numberthirteen.htm [accessed 20 January
2016] In Child Labour
Persists Around The World: More Than 13 Percent Of Children 10-14 Are
Employed International Labour
Organisation (ILO) News, www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/news/WCMS_008058/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 9
September 2011] www.scribd.com/document/366840945/Child-Labour-Persists-Around-the-World [accessed 30 January
2019] "Today's child
worker will be tomorrow's uneducated and untrained adult, forever trapped in
grinding poverty. No effort should be spared to break that vicious
circle", says ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne. Among the countries
with a high percentage of their children from 10-14 years in the work force
are: Mali, 54.5 percent; Burkina Faso, 51; Niger and Uganda, both 45; Kenya,
41.3; Senegal, 31.4; Bangladesh, 30.1; Nigeria, 25.8; Haiti, 25; Turkey, 24;
Côte d'Ivoire, 20.5; Pakistan, 17.7; Brazil, 16.1; India, 14.4; China, 11.6; and Egypt, 11.2. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 30 September 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/china2005b.html [accessed 29 January
2011] DATA
COLLECTION -
The Committee regrets the limited statistical data on sexual exploitation and
cross-border trafficking included in the State party’s report, both with
regard to mainland The Protection
Project - China The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/china.doc [Last accessed 2009] www.protectionproject.org/country-reports/ [accessed 22
February 2016] FACTORS THAT
CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - As a result of China’s one-child
policy, unwanted female children are prone to abandonment, trafficking, and
even infanticide. Girls are also disadvantaged in the areas of education and
job opportunities. Such discrimination increases girls’ vulnerability to
trafficking. Girls are sold to rural
families who already have a son but want a daughter to help with the
housework; others are sold to be raised as child brides for farmers in remote
regions. Because of the selective abortion of girls in China, some
researchers estimate there are 111 males for every 100 females in the
country, making it difficult for poor farmers to find wives. The lack of Chinese women in turn fuels
trafficking from Vietnam to China, as does the reported lack of available
Vietnamese men for Vietnamese women. Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide [accessed 29 January
2011] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 26 April
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Exploitative
employment practices such as wage theft, excessive overtime, student labor,
and unsafe working conditions are pervasive in many industries. Forced labor
and trafficking are also common, frequently affecting rural migrants, and
Chinese nationals are similarly trafficked abroad. Forced labor is the norm
in prisons and other forms of administrative detention for criminal,
political, and religious detainees. Authorities in some parts of Xinjiang
reportedly continued to require Uighurs to provide unpaid labor for public
works projects during 2017. 2017 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 20 April 2018 www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2017/eap/277073.htm
[accessed 19 March
2019] [accessed 25 June
2019] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR Persons with mental
disabilities were subjected to forced labor in small workshops and factories.
Police raided two workshops in Heilongjiang Province in the northeast in July
and freed more than 30 enslaved laborers, according to media reports. In 2013 the NPC
abolished the Re-education through Labor system, an arbitrary system of
administrative detention without judicial review. Some media outlets and NGOs
reported that forced labor continued in some drug rehabilitation facilities
where individuals continued to be detained without judicial process. It was
not possible to independently to verify these reports. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Abuse of the
student-worker system continued; as in past years, there were allegations
that schools and local officials improperly facilitated the supply of student
laborers. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61605.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– Internal trafficking was a significant problem. Ministry of Public Security
(MPS) statistics show that during the first 10 months of the year, there were
1,949 cases of trafficking involving women and children. Over this same
period, there were 3,574 women and children rescued compared with 8,949 women
and children rescued in 2004. Some experts
suggested that the demand for abducted women was fueled by the shortage of
marriageable brides, especially in rural areas. The serious imbalance in the
male-female sex ratio at birth, the tendency for many village women to leave
rural areas to seek employment, and the cost of traditional betrothal gifts
all made purchasing a bride attractive to some poor rural men. Some men
recruited brides from poorer regions, while others sought help from criminal
gangs. Criminal gangs either kidnapped women and girls or tricked them with
promises of jobs and higher living standards, only to be transported far from
their homes for delivery to buyers. Once in their new "family," these
women were "married" and raped. Some accepted their fate and joined
the new community; others struggled and were punished; a few escaped. Kidnapping and the
buying and selling of children continued to occur, particularly in poorer
rural areas. There were no reliable estimates of the number of children
trafficked. Domestically, most trafficked children were sold to couples
unable to have children; in particular, boys were trafficked to couples
unable to have a son. In 2004 media reported arrests in the case of 76 baby
boys sold in All material
used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for
noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - |
||||||||||||
