Human Trafficking

I recently read an article about Human Trafficking in Yunnan Province. This is an absolutely disgusting practice. Below is my summary of BBC's 8/9/06 article.

In Yunnan province, young women are allegedly being sold as wives or to brothels and sweat shops in Thailand. Yunnan villages, which lie close to the border with Burma, are very different from other parts of the economically booming China. The villages are homes to ethnic minorities, whose language and culture has more in common with northern Thailand than with the Han Chinese. Trade and tourism across the border with Burma has fallen, which translates to little opportunity for young people in these small villages. Every year, thousands pack up and leave, heading for the cities or crossing through Burma to Thailand in hopes of getting a well-paid job. Very few do make money and come back to the villages to show off their success which in turn only encourages more young people to follow suit. This only feeds the vicious cycle.

Qing-qing is 19 now but when she was just seven-years-old, she and her mother were sold. "A woman my mother knows came to our house with some men we hadn't seen before," she told me. "My mother was tricked. They sold her as a bride to a man in eastern China."

It is difficult to find officials who give a clear and honest picture of this human trafficking. Not very much is known about who exactly the traffickers are. It is suspected that they are Chinese people from Sichuan province. Because it would be too hard for Thai people to come to the villages to recruit girls, they are not suspected in the recruitment process. This practice has been going on for who knows how long yet Yunnan just barely setup the country's first anti-trafficking program. I would have to say that there is nothing but ignorance coming from these state officials, the only thing they govern is their state of denial. No matter what laws or programs are put in place it seems like the traffickers are targeting younger and younger girls. New dangers and freedoms await China as they become an economic power house, but in order to loose the chains of its past, China will have to change their culture of secrecy and cover-ups.