Human trafficking in China
Women and children from Myanmar, Vietnam, Mongolia, former USSR (except for the Baltic States), North Korea, Romania, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Ghana are trafficked to China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.
[4] According to the United Nations Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons of 2000, as part of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, human trafficking involves "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons" by "the use of force or other means of coercion" with the "purpose of exploitation".
"[5] The United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking reports that around 600,000 migrant workers leave China annually to work overseas.
[5] For example, of the 8,000 Vietnamese women married to Chinese men in Guangxi province between 1989 and 1999, some were introduced by friends and relatives, and most were found to have been trafficked.
[6] The main means of trafficking involved: fraud and deception, 37%; kidnapping, 26%; abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, 17%; and physical violence, 5%.
Provinces with high GDP per capita like Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong, are the prime destinations for trafficked victims because there is a great demand and resources available to utilise forced labourers.
[6] According to a 2023 report, there are up to 500,000 North Korean women and girls in China's northern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang, where human trafficking industry exploded, reaching $105 million per year.
Traffickers recruited girls and young women, often from rural areas of China, using a combination of fraudulent job offers, imposition of large travel fees, and threats of physical or financial harm, to obtain and maintain their service in prostitution.
Forced labour remains a serious problem, including in brick kilns, coal mines, factories, and construction sites throughout China.
As an example, in May 2009, media reports exposed a forced labour case at brick kilns in Anhui province, where mentally handicapped workers were subjected to slave-like conditions".
[2] The U.S. State Department's human trafficking report (2024) estimated that the PRC’s internal migrant population exceeds 169 million people, placing them at high risk of forced labor in brick kilns, coal mines, and factories.
Traffickers generally sell these women in distant areas, such as Shaanxi, Ningxia, Guangxi, Hainan, and Guangdong provinces with large gender imbalances.
"[2] For example, there were reports that child labourers were found working in brick kilns, low-skill service sectors and in small workshops and factories.
Many women are deceived because of their poor education and they are often also marginalized minority groups who believe the false promises of traffickers who offer the hope of living an urban life.
"[23] The sex industry in China is flourishing, primarily fueled by the trafficking and sale of young women and girls for the purpose of marriage.
This phenomenon has been influenced by the historical implications of the one-child policy and the traditional Chinese inclination for male offspring, which has led to a significant gender imbalance with a surplus of men in the country.
This is due to the tradition in which sons (especially firstborns) usually inherit the family name and property and are tasked with taking care of the parents, which made having daughters undesirable.
Economic hardships, especially in rural areas, are cited to be the main reason why so many women became victims of human trafficking through transnational marriages.
The possibility of immigration through marriage, in a way, offers women opportunities towards a better life as it is often seen as an easy and secure path to wealth, stability, and mobility.
Culturally, the perception of wifehood and modernity are also factors that motivate the idea of marriage migration, usually via media and other forms of communication, which convince many that establishing a stable family life with middle-class resources is possible beyond their borders (Yang and Lu, 2010).
[citation needed] Another important factor is the political instability and violence in neighboring countries that leave women vulnerable to displacement and human trafficking.
For example, brides trafficked from northern Myanmar into China are mostly part of an ethnic minority that is vulnerable to the long-run conflict in the region.
Traditionally, Chinese culture dictates that organs should be buried and cremated for the individual to be reincarnated as a whole which has led to a dearth of bodies being donated.
In addition, police complicity with smugglers has further exacerbated the problem, leaving women vulnerable to trafficking and forced marriage.
[29] According to a pamphlet created by Save the Children debriefing the current situation in China, the organisation is "helping to build networks that migrants can turn to when they arrive in their destinations."
There is also child protection work at children's activity centres in cities like Nanning, Kunming, Shenzhen, and Shanghai with huge migrant communities.
[30] The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed its first human rights convention in November 2012 and committed itself to a trafficking agreement in 2014.
It has expanded to include Bruenei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam since then along with adding the ASEAN Plus Three of China, Japan, and Korea.
