China horror: Thousands of trafficked women sold as brides and held as sex slaves

It has also led to a growing number of poor children from Southeast Asian countries being sold into forced marriages in China. The women and girls are being trafficked in from Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Burma, Nepal, North Korea and Pakistan, according to charity Human Rights Watch. It found “compelling evidence” all have become “source countries for a brutal business – the trafficking of women and girls for sale in China as brides”.

In Burma, hundreds of young women and girls have been lured across the border.

They are usually approached by brokers in rural areas, who promise them a well-paid job across the border in China.

Once in China, they are in the hands of brokers and traffickers who sell them for around £2,340 ($3,000) to £10,139 ($13,000) to Chinese families.

They are then held prisoner and forced to produce babies as quickly as possible.

Some of the women said they had been pressured to undergo forced fertility treatment.

The organisation claimed the women who managed to escape could only do so by leaving their children behind.

Several of the women said they had been trafficked more than once.

Similar stories have been seen across Asia including Cambodia, North Korea and Vietnam.

Official statistics show there were 2,700 reported cases of human trafficking in Vietnam between 2011 and 2017, involving nearly 6,000 victims mainly from poor families in rural areas.

The one-child policy China enforced from 1979 to 2015 has had a devastating effect on the country’s female population.

Over generations, a preference for boys over girls meant gender-selective abortions were common, creating a huge gender imbalance.

Since 1987, the percentage of women in China has fallen steadily. The country now has 30 to 40 million more men than women.

The so-called “missing women” means that Chinese men find it difficult to marry.

This has, in turn, fuelled a demand for trafficked women from abroad to be sold as brides for Chinese men.

The South China Morning Post said websites in China are offering foreign brides for around 10,000 yuan (£1,117).

More than 1,100 foreign women were rescued in China in a six-month operation last year, many of who were Cambodia and Vietnam.

The rescue mission was the biggest in the country involving foreign trafficked women.

The news comes as Vietnamese authorities confirmed today they had identified the 39 victims found dead inside a lorry in Essex last month.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has called for an investigation into allegations of human trafficking.

In a statement, he said: “Any violations will be strictly dealt with.”

source: express.co.uk