China, a Nation without Women in Making?

Thousands of vulnerable girls and women from the north of Myanmar are being trafficked to China and forced to marry Chinese men, a study revealed recently. China has nearly 33 million fewer women than men because of the country’s decade-long one-child policy.

Now to fill the gap, thousands of poor women from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are sold every year as brides. Though some of the women are going willingly while others are forcefully trafficked. In the study, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated 7,500 women from war-torn northern Shan states and Kachin have fallen victim to the trend of forced marriage in China.

The report, which is based on interviews with a number of people who escaped and returned to Myanmar and some who are still inside China. The study also found that the majority of those trafficked were also forced to carry a child for their Chinese husband.

According to the author of the report, W. Courtland Robinson, Women leave Myanmar because of “conflict, displacement and poverty, while the male-female sex imbalance in China, especially in rural areas means demand for a wife is high”.

According to Moon Nay Li of Kachin Women's Association Thailand, a woman told the researchers that she was trafficked into China three times and every time she was “pushed into giving birth. Because of political instability, conflict and land confiscation... security for women is a big challenge”.

All these marriages are often arranged and brokered by the women’s own families and village heads, as brides are unable to refuse as they form the bottom of the social hierarchy. In the deal of brides, the young women fetch higher prices up to $10,000 to 15,000.

While their matches in China are often too sick, old or disabled men from rural areas who are considered undesirable to the Han Chinese but the lack of documentation led the women to follow their destiny as victims.

The study also found that the women were often hired to bear children for their husbands and then are forced out or sold on to new husbands thereby earning money from the old husband. Though some women have successful marriages.

In order to deal with the situation, researchers have called for Myanmar to end the conflict in Kachin and Shan states, which has led to the displacement of tens thousands of its women to China and to train anti-trafficking officials to enforce the law strictly and to recognize the women as victims.