Bride trafficking has emerged as a growing issue in China as ‘leftover’ men struggle to find spouses.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31178698

[This is a piece by Research Scholar of East Asia Studies in History Division, Lund University, Sweden.]

Unable to find a domestic spouse, some Chinese men have turned to “purchasing” foreign brides. The growing demand for these brides, particularly in rural areas, has fuelled a rise in illegal marriages. This includes marriages involving children and women who have been trafficked into China primarily from neighbouring countries in south-east Asia.

[…]

Determining the extent of illegal cross-border marriages in China is challenging due to the clandestine nature of these activities. But the most recent data from the UK’s Home Office suggests that 75% of Vietnamese human-trafficking victims were smuggled to China, with women and children making up 90% of cases.

[…]

The Woman from Myanmar, an award-winning documentary from 2022, follows the story of a trafficked Myanmar woman who was sold into marriage in China. The film exposes the harsh realities faced by many trafficked brides.

It captures not only the coercion and abuse many of these women endure, but also their struggle for autonomy and survival in a system that treats them as commodities. Larry, a trafficked woman who features in the documentary, explained that she saw her capacity to bear children as her pathway to survival.

[…]

  • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
    2·
    3 days ago

    exacerbated in China’s case by the now-revoked One-Child Policy’s unintentional demographic consequences

    These ‘unintentional demographic consequences’ were predictable, as the sex ratio became skewed toward males. Parents in rural areas were allowed a second child if the first was a daughter. In addition, having a girl became highly undesirable in China at the time, resulting in a rise in abortions of female fetuses,

    Another effect was that the births of subsequent children after the first one went unreported or were hidden from authorities. These children- who, according to the authorities, should not have been born- were and still are banned from healthcare or free education, from travel or even from such simple things like using a library. The number of such children is not known, estimates have ranged from the hundreds of thousands to several million.

    All this is very bad, and the authorities knew all this.

    • Drewfro66@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      31·
      3 days ago

      I never said that the demographic consequences were unpredictable, just that they were unintentional - the policy was put in place to control population growth. It had unfortunate secondary consequences which should have been mitigated, but they were not intentional.

      Other than that I think your comment shows a strong and fair understanding of the issues. Every state, especially Socialist ones, has had their missteps - and the One-Child Policy was one of those.

      • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
        1·
        2 days ago

        As an example among countless others of your so-called ‘unintentional consequences,’ this is from 2012, when the one-child policy was still in place and there was outrage after Chinese woman forced to abort in seventh month

        A woman in the western [Chinese] town of Ankang posted a gruesome photo after she was forced to have an abortion in the seventh month of her pregnancy. After the photo spread across the Internet in China, authorities in the Shannxi province have announced that they are sending a team to investigate, and will “deal with the case seriously in accordance with the law.” […]

        Feng told a Caixin reporter that she was forced into the abortion because she can’t afford the 40,000 RMB ($6,300) penalty imposed by the local family planning department […]

        Feng Jianmei said that on June 2 more than 20 staff from the town’s family planning department came to her home and arrested her. On the way to the hospital, as she resisted, she said she was beaten by the authorities.

        During the injection, lethal to the fetus, none of her family was allowed to be present. When her father-in-law heard the news and rushed to the hospital he was prevented from entering the obstetrics ward. […]