Since the late 1970s, China has witnessed the Communist regime under Deng Xiaoping ushering in reforms aimed at the country’s economic boom. One such reform was the infamous one-child policy, introduced in 1979, which led to the country’s skewed sex ratio—a result of China’s social and cultural preference for male children. Consequently, there was an increase in female infanticide and child abandonment. The one-child policy also contributed to a falling birth rate, an ageing population, and a shrinking workforce.
Despite its official termination in 2016, the long-term effects of the one-child policy persist, contributing to issues such as gender-based violence. One of the most egregious outcomes is the practice of bride trafficking, which extends beyond China’s borders and ensnares neighbouring countries as well. Although this human rights violation is now widely recognised, authorities in China have long maintained silence and have been in denial about acknowledging the practice of bride trafficking.
China is ranked 107th out of 146 on the Global Gender Gap Index (2023), marking a 0.4 per cent decline from the previous year. Stemming from 34 years of the one-child policy, Beijing records one of the lowest sex ratios at birth—89 per cent, equating to 103.998 males for every 100 females. Current estimates reveal a surplus of 27.93 million males over females in China, a disparity even more pronounced in rural areas where the ratio is 108 males per 100 females (2021 estimate). Additionally, China has the world’s fifth most skewed sex ratio at birth.
Since the 1960s, China has experienced a significant population decline, recording its lowest in 2022, with a drop in the fertility rate from 2.6 in the late 1980s to 1.5 in 2021. This demographic shift, largely attributed to the prolonged one-child policy, risks precipitating a demographic crisis and affecting the country’s economy. Notably, the national gender imbalance in China has shown little improvement despite the introduction of a three-child policy in 2021.
Amidst a population decline, gender imbalance, and economic downturn due to zero-Covid restrictions, the number of marriages in China has also seen a decline in recent years, reaching its lowest record last year. The imbalance in the marriage market has paved the way for the high cost of marriage, known as the ‘bride price’, a longstanding Chinese tradition where the groom (or his family) pays money to the bride’s family as a condition of engagement. The bride price, believed to average $20,000 in some provinces, has skyrocketed in recent years, severely affecting those in rural areas where the sex ratio is more skewed and economic conditions are poorer.
To overcome this economic challenge, coupled with the increasing demand for brides as a result of gender imbalance, the practice of bride trafficking has become more prevalent. Bride trafficking involves the trafficking of young girls and women for marriage and sexual exploitation. Often, the purpose of marriage through bride trafficking is to have children as quickly as possible, risking sexual slavery and abuse for these women. The viral video footage of the “chained woman” in 2022 shed light on this illicit practice to China’s general public. The video showed a middle-aged Chinese woman in Jiangsu Province, held captive by a man (claimed to be her husband) with a chain around her neck, living in dire conditions. The Chinese vlogger who recorded the footage reported that the woman had been locked up for more than 20 years and forced to give birth to the man’s eight children. Believed to be a case of bride trafficking, the footage triggered outrage and criticism on Chinese social media. However, the authorities denied this to be a case of bride trafficking and repeatedly claimed the woman was lawfully married to the man, justifying her chained state as a means to restrain her due to her mental illness.
Despite repeated attempts at censorship by the government, continued public outrage forced the Jiangsu authorities to launch an investigation. In 2023, six people, including the husband, received light prison sentences in multiple trafficking cases. Following this, more cases of bride trafficking began to gain attention.
China’s bride trafficking extends beyond its provinces, reaching neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. This practice shares several common features. Trafficked women, often unschooled, hail from vulnerable communities and regions. They are lured across borders to China under false pretexts of promising employment opportunities or a better life through marriage. Once trafficked, they suffer inhumane and abusive treatment at the hands of brokers and the Chinese men who purchase them. This mistreatment includes rape and other forms of sexual exploitation, restrictions on movement, passport confiscation, issuance of false marriage certificates, and confinement within four walls. Many of these girls are unaware that they are being trafficked for forced marriage to Chinese men. Traffickers, often acquainted with the victims, also inflict violence to enforce these marriages. They typically target regions plagued by dire poverty, such as in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, or those in war-torn areas like Myanmar. Trafficking in these regions has surged over the past decade and spiked notably during the first quarter of 2020.
Human Rights Watch (2019) reported that various Asian countries have become source nations for China’s transnational bride trafficking—a brutal business. Vietnam, for example, is particularly vulnerable to transnational trafficking as border migration merely requires a border pass rather than a visa. According to investigations by Vietnamese police, over 3,000 women and children were trafficked between 2012 and 2017, many to China. In Laos, economic hardships exacerbated by the Covid pandemic have led to a spike in trafficking cases to China. From 2008 to 2018, about 3,000 Laos women and underage girls were trafficked to China, with only 600 managing to return. Bride trafficking in Cambodia surged since 2016; the Cambodian government reported that of the 112 trafficked brides who returned in 2019, 111 had been in China. These brides were taken to China on tourist visas, which expire after a month, following which many, including minors, were subjected to rape and other sexual exploitation.
A study by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand estimated that from 2013 to 2017, approximately 21,000 women and girls from Myanmar were forced into marriage in just one province in China. In the same period, of the 160,000 female Myanmar migrants who returned from China, 5,000 were victims of forced marriages, and 2,800 were compelled to bear children for their Chinese husbands. In Nepal, the first instance of bride trafficking to China since 2015 was reported in 2019, with Nepal Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau arresting 10 people, including four Chinese nationals, for involvement in bride trafficking under the guise of cross-border marriage.
The Christian population in Pakistan, one of the country’s poorest communities, is another case of a vulnerable minority population being targeted by this illicit practice. In 2019, over 600 Pakistani brides, mostly Christian, were reported to have been sold to Chinese men over a couple of years. The influx of Chinese nationals in Pakistan via the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, hailed as a flagship project by both countries, is believed to have exacerbated bride trafficking cases in Pakistan. Although about 52 Chinese traffickers were arrested by Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, the case soon faded under government pressure as they feared it would damage bilateral agreements. Uneven power dynamics, therefore, play a significant role in concealing these cases that put China’s illicit practice into the spotlight.
Despite public attention, Chinese authorities have done little to address the problem of bride trafficking. Instead, they respond to accusations with censorship, denial, and suppression. China’s criminal law does not comprehensively tackle bride trafficking, meting out sentences of five to ten years for traffickers, while purchasers receive no more than three years. This is despite the fact that between 2017 and 2020, Chinese courts heard over 1,250 cases of bride trafficking. Furthermore, in many instances, Chinese courts have denied divorce petitions filed by trafficked women who endured years of abuse from their husbands. It is evident, therefore, that China’s nonchalant approach to the handling of bride trafficking is driven by its efforts to promote positive population growth, albeit in an inhumane manner.
The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
