Human Trafficking in [China Street Children in [China] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [China] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery People’s Republic of China [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The
People's Republic of The People’s
Republic of China (P.R.C.) is a source, transit, and destination country for
men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation
and forced labor. The majority of trafficking in China occurs within the
country’s borders, but there is also considerable international trafficking
of P.R.C. citizens to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East,
and North America, which often occurs within a larger flow of human
smuggling. Chinese women are lured abroad through false promises of
legitimate employment, only to be forced into commercial sexual exploitation,
largely in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan. There are also many cases
involving Chinese men and women who are smuggled into destination countries throughout
the world at an enormous personal financial cost and whose indebtedness to
traffickers is then used as a means to coerce them into commercial sexual
exploitation or forced labor. Women and children are trafficked to China from
Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam for forced labor, marriage,
and prostitution. North Korean women and children seeking to leave their
country voluntarily cross the border into China, but some of these
individuals, after they enter the P.R.C. in a vulnerable, undocumented
status, are then sold into prostitution, marriage, or forced labor. While it
is difficult to determine if the P.R.C.’s male-female birth ratio imbalance,
with more males than females, is currently affecting trafficking of women for
brides, some experts believe that it has already or may become a contributing
factor. Forced
labor, including forced child labor, remains a significant problem in China.
Children as young as 12 were reportedly subjected to forced labor under the guise
of “Work and Study” programs over the past year. Conditions in this program
include excessive hours with mandatory overtime, dangerous conditions, low
pay, and involuntary pay deductions. In June 2007, a Guangdong factory
licensed to produce products bearing the 2008 Olympics logo admitted to
employing children as young as 12 years old under similar conditions. Some
children, particularly Uighur youth from Xinjiang Province, have been
abducted for forced begging and thievery in large cities. Overseas human
rights organizations allege that government-sponsored labor programs forced
Uighur girls and young women to work in factories in eastern China on false
pretenses and without regular wages. Involuntary servitude of Chinese
nationals abroad also persisted, although the extent of the problem is
unclear. Experts believe that the number of Chinese labor and sex trafficking
victims in Europe is growing in countries such as Britain, Italy, and France. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** China
Arrests Nine for Human Trafficking Chinese police raided a human
trafficking ring and arrested nine people for kidnapping and selling children
in northwestern and central China, state media reported on Wednesday. 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 The women who flee North Korea
believe nothing could be worse than their dictatorship's famine and labor
camps. But many change their minds
after they cross the *** ARCHIVES
*** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 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 Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 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 Children
rescued from human-trafficking gang "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 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. China
claims progress fighting human trafficking There has been a rise in
trafficking cases involving Myanmar women in China in particular in recent
years. The women are mostly smuggled
through the porous border into the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan
and then taken to central and north China, where poverty and a skewed sex
ratio means many farmers cannot find wives.
Late last year, China jailed six Myanmar nationals for selling 23
Myanmar girls to Chinese peasants as wives. 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 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 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. 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 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 Forced labor and sexual
exploitation have increased as the trend in human trafficking in China has
taken a turn for the worst. 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. China
Arrests Nine for Human Trafficking Chinese police raided a human
trafficking ring and arrested nine people for kidnapping and selling children
in northwestern and central China, state media reported on Wednesday. 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. 'Alarming'
Trade in Human Organ Trafficking The International Organization for
Migration (IOM) expressed alarm on Thursday over rising cases of trade in
human organs in Asia, and said globalization had increased risks of human
trafficking. 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 “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 WOMEN WHO ARE SOLD INTO SLAVERY - Ms. G (age: 26), a former nurse
from the North who made it across the border to China in February was
appalled after she was sold to a family. She was the only woman in the house
with 62-year-old father, 32 year-old oldest son and other three men. Her
worst fears turned into reality when the father and four sons each demanded
her to share their bed every night. She was forced to go through this ordeal,
even when she was sick or had her period. She did not have anyone to turn to,
because there was not even a village nearby. She put up with this life for
about eight months. Protecting
young women from human trafficking in Viet Nam 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. Vietnam,
China boost ties to combat human trafficking 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 According to confirmed sources,
some human trafficking syndicates have been dispatching young women from
Burma to China, where they are sold for large sums of money. China
issues plan to combat human trafficking 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 Reviewing the human trafficking
trend in the region, Thailand’s Susu Thatun, programme manager of the United
Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong
Sub-region reported that nearly one-third of the global trafficking trade of
about 200,000-225,000 women and children are trafficked annually from
Southeast Asia. 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,
China battle human trafficking More than 550 Vietnamese women and
children were trafficked to China in the last two years, the Vietnamese
police said yesterday in a report released at a workshop held on cross-border
trafficking between the two countries. 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 trafficking1 China said today that human trafficking
cases within its borders have declined and that it is willing to work
together with other countries to do more to prevent women and girls from
being forced into prostitution, marriage or labour. Mekong
region govts to co-op against human trafficking 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 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. Abraham
Lee - Testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 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 China. It also provides human
traffickers the perfect opportunity to exploit this desperate situation.
Although the numbers are difficult to quantify, reports indicate that as many
as 70%-80% of all North Korean women who enter China illegally are victims of
trafficking. John
R. Miller- Testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Ms. Cha went to look for work in China
when she could no longer feed her three children. Twice she was arrested by
Chinese authorities, forcibly repatriated, and sent to a North Korean
detention center. In China, her youngest daughter fell victim to traffickers
as well. Ms. Cha traveled from village to village in China looking for her
daughters, and eventually fell into debt bondage to a Korean-Chinese man who
“purchased” her younger daughter to return to live with them and forced them
both to labor on his farm. China’s One Child Policy Exacerbates Slavery, Panel Concludes 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 North Korea as wives, the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China reported Monday. The refugees forced to be sex slaves in China The women who flee North Korea
believe nothing could be worse than their dictatorship's famine and labor
camps. But many change their minds
after they cross the Trader arrested for alleged prostitution1 Barry said all the workers were
promised legitimate jobs with a 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 reportedly forced to stay, as the defendant
told them they have no way of settling their debts and purchasing airfares
back to Facing
the future with 40 million bachelors China faces a future of crime and
instability as a generation of 40 million men is left frustrated by a lack of
brides, thanks to the practice of selective abortion of female foetuses, a
population official has warned. Men
left on the shelf would resort to prostitutes or pay huge prices for brides,
while trafficking in women and girls kidnapped from rural areas and other
countries would increase. 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. Women and children are increasingly
the majority of refugees crossing the river into Border
police rescue 37 in anti-human trafficking drive The women were saved thanks to a
joint operation between Guangxi and Strong
Effort Needed to Gain Chinese Worker Rights CECC
Roundtable Panelists Discuss Issue Of Forced Labor In China's Laogai When a product is labeled
"Made in Activists decry brutal Chinese factories, WalMart, Nike sited 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 A new program to prevent the kidnapping
of Chinese girls and young women with the purpose of exploitation in labor
has been inaugurated in China Stops Baby
Trafficking Ring 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. The
Protection Project - China [DOC] 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. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study China
executes 3 baby traffickers China has executed three baby
traffickers who sold 11 infants in nation where family planning rules allow
couples normally to have just one child.
The three were executed in Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan,
Xinhua news agency said. "Many
babies kidnapped by them are still missing and there is no way to rescue
them," a judge with the Kunming Intermediate People's Court was quoted
as saying. China, UNICEF Join Hands to Protect Girls 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 China Human trafficking of women and
children in China has increased to over 42,000 reported cases from 2001 to
2003, according to official statistics.
According to the Chinese Official Media, Xin Hua News Agency, over a
period of three years, police in China has solved about 20,000 cases of
illegal sales of women and children. A total of 22,000 suspects have been
arrested. Many young girls from the rural areas have been sold to various
areas and forced to marry or become sex slaves. Young boys have been sold to
childless families or families with only one child due to the One Child
Policy in China. More
Than 200 Children Missing in Kunming City Since 2001, almost 200 children,
mainly boys aged between one and six years old, have gone missing in Kunming
City. Incidences of child trafficking and selling have occurred at Kunming
City’s Guandu and Xishan areas. The rate of disappearances is also on the
rise. In 2001 23 children who went missing. This rose to 30 the following
year and 67 last year. As of April 3 this year 21 children have been reported
missing. - links to articles re: Forced
labor camps in China - Slave
Labor Experience at Forced Labor Camps 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 Here's what I found out about what
is going on in China: The report mentions no less than 40 times by my count
(I may have missed some) the cheery sounding reeducation-through-labor camps widely
used in China (and it ain't talking about an AFL-CIO activist training).
Rather, Chinese citizens (some 250,000 of them) were confined without
judicial process and force to work "in facilities directly connected
with penal institutions...[or in some cases] they were contracted to
nonprison enterprises. Facilities and their management profited from inmate
labor." Who were these prisoners? Activists for religious freedom,
democratic reform, labor rights, women's rights, people who fall out of favor
of the party, people who protest to demand back pay for wages that are
withheld (more on this below), and generally people who rake too much muck. Slavery,
Prostitution Effect of China's One-Child Policy "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. 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
China Hides Its Slave Labor From the Free World 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 MIGRANT WORKERS' CHILDREN TARGETED
BY KIDNAPPERS -
Police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen said Thursday they had
rescued nine abducted children and arrested six suspects in connection with
what is believed to be one of the largest child trafficking rings the city
has seen. The crackdown came after 10
children aged between three and four years old were kidnapped in the city,
which is home to a large population of migrant workers, since the beginning
of the year, a police statement said. The tenth child has not yet been
accounted for. China Declares ‘Zero Tolerance’ on Human Trafficking 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 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. 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 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. China arrests
prostitution gang Police in China have arrested 79
gang members suspected of abducting women from rural areas and forcing them
into prostitution. Hundreds of young
women and girls are said to have been lured with promises of jobs in Chinese
cities. Some of the victims were as young as 12-years-old. Vietnamese
Women Are Kidnapped 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 China, changing hands four times
before finally meeting the man who would be her husband. "I am writing
while wiping away tears," she told her family in a letter she mailed
secretly. "Please come here and save me." New
weapons against child trafficking in Asia In Asia, trafficking in children
both between and within various countries is on the increase. In recent
years, large numbers of children from Cambodia, China, Laos and Myanmar have
been forced to work as prostitutes in Thailand. Both girls and boys from poor
rural areas are lured by professional recruiters and traffickers with
promises of legitimate jobs in Thailand's booming economy. 1.
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Human Trafficking in [China Street Children in [China] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [China] [other countries]