The People's Republic of China (PRC) is a country of origin, destination, and transit for human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery.
Sex trafficking victims in the country are from all ethnic groups in China and foreigners. Chinese citizens have been sex trafficked to the various provinces of China, as well as other countries and different continents. Illegal organizations often lure Chinese women abroad under the guise of legitimate work in other countries. Once these women arrive in that country, they are forced into prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation. Some of the women trafficked from China to Thailand and Malaysia are from ethnic minorities like the Dai ethnicity from areas like the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province and they are trafficked by men of their own ethnicity. The Dai people are related to Thai people. Chinese women and girls are trafficked for the purpose of prostitution worldwide and are found in major cities abroad, construction sites, and places where Chinese laborers are present. They have been detected in overseas Chinese expatriate communities. China's internal migrant population, in the hundreds of millions, is particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking. Sex trafficked victims are abducted or deceived and forced into prostitution, marriages, and or pregnancies. They are threatened, physically and psychologically harmed. They contract sexually transmitted diseases from rapes, and abuses such as starvation are common. Some women and girls die from the poor conditions in captivity or are tortured or murdered. Foreign women and children mostly from Burma, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam are trafficked to China for forced labor, marriage, and prostitution. Most of them are from vulnerable communities. Women and girls from northern Myanmar to China are sold from about $3,000 to $13,000 to Chinese families struggling to find brides for their sons. Experts relate China's serious sex trafficking with the country's one-child policy. They argue that the imbalance in the ratio of male to female births and the scarcity of women resulting from the policy has greatly contributed to the phenomenon of trafficking in women as brides.
Sex trafficking and exploitation have permeated all levels of Chinese society. Male and female perpetrators in China come from a wide range of backgrounds and every social class. A number of traffickers are members of facilitated criminal organizations and gangs. Some government officials and workers, as well as foreigners, have profited from sex trafficking in China. Rising incomes in China have spurred increased consumption of many services, both licit and illicit. It has occurred in businesses linked to China's entertainment and tourism industries, as well as heavy industries and the mining sector. Some reporters suggest that the Belt and Road Initiative and globalization have led to an increase in sex trafficking in China. Chinese sex traffickers operate throughout the world. Cybersex trafficking is a growing problem in 21st century China. The global spread of high-speed internet and increase in computer, tablet, and smartphone ownership have fueled online or virtual forced prostitution and sex abuse and the creation of illegal pornographic videos purchased by users worldwide.
The scale of sex trafficking in China is difficult to know because of the lack of primary research and data collection, the clandestine nature of sex trafficking crimes, the fact that only a small minority of cases are reported to the authorities, and other factors. Chinese government ministries, as well as international and domestic agencies and organisations, do some work to combat sex trafficking patterns, but this has not brought substantive improvements and responses have proved insufficient. The enforcement of sex trafficking laws and investigating and prosecuting of trafficking cases have been immobilized by interagency collaboration and coordination challenges, logistical difficulties, poor border management, language barriers of foreign victims, political dynamics, corruption, and apathy. Some Chinese police and officials, as well as overseas embassies and diplomatic missions, have been accused of negligence concerning counter-sex trafficking efforts and concern for victims. Available statistics indicate that China needs to devote greater resources and implement better policies and strategies designed to reduce sex trafficking in the country. It is difficult for trading partners of China to criticize the country's inadequate anti-sex trafficking efforts because of fears of tensions. Chinese civil society's efforts in countering sex trafficking are stymied by threats and coercion from criminal organizations and officials and the government's repression of women and human rights organizations, presses, and lawyers.
Victims
Victims of sex trafficking for sexual slavery in China include children, adults, impoverished, migrants, disabled persons, ethnic and religious minorities, foreigners, and overseas Chinese. It is not uncommon for victims of rape to be used additionally as forced laborers in homes, farms, and businesses. They, particularly forced prostitutes, often contract sexually transmitted diseases because the clients/rapists often do not use contraceptive methods. Women and girls have contracted HIV. A number of them are verbally and physically abused and beaten, starved, drugged, and sexually tortured.
It is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 victims are trafficked within the China each year. Chinese police rescued 88,000 trafficked women from 1991 to 1996; they freed more than 42,000 kidnapped women and children from 2001 to 2003. However, due to the concealment of crime, it is hard to determine how many women are still being enslaved in China. Many sex-trafficked women and girls are never found.
Surviving victims face ostracisation from their families and communities. Some victims are discouraged by family and friends from seeking justice. Some in extreme poverty or suffering from trauma or forced drug addiction because of their captors reluctantly return to prostitution after being rescued. Many mothers who flee or are rescued will never be able to see their children held by the buying family or sold by the traffickers. Some former trafficking victims are reluctant to report traffickers to the local authorities because they fear reprisal from criminals. Some rescued victims get abducted and sex trafficked again.
Trafficking survivors may need urgent medical care for problems ranging from injuries due to sexual abuse and torture. They need legal assistance to ensure that the justice system - which too often lets trafficking victims down - is responsive to their needs for accountability and compensation. Many need financial assistance as months and years of sexual slavery resulted in no education and income.
The Chinese government's protection of victims has been criticized: Chinese law enforcement officials have arrested and detained foreign women on suspicion of prostitution crimes without screening them for indicators of sexual exploitation—sometimes for as long as four months, before deporting them for immigration violations. The police have treated the women and girls as violators of immigration law but have taken little action against their traffickers.
There is a need for greater rehabilitative assistance and protection services, including comprehensive counseling and medical reintegration of the victims. In many cases, detained or imprisoned women were beaten by other inmates.
The Chinese government maintains a wide network of shelters across the country, providing food, accommodation, and other services to Chinese citizens facing various kinds of challenges. The system, however, is inexperienced in supporting foreigners in need of help. Anecdotal evidence suggests that non-Chinese women escaping conditions of forced marriage, some pregnant are at times not granted access to shelters and their services. Special support services exist for children, including specialized shelters. Emergency shelters, physical and mental health services, education, job training, financial assistance, and family reunification are available for all groups.
Females
Females are more vulnerable than males because of entrenched misogyny that causes men to view women and girls as inferior and commoditize them. Traditional patriarchal structures reinforce gender inequality, especially in rural areas where females are oftentimes not afforded the same opportunities as males and are forced to submit to male authority. This inequality leaves women and girls increasingly marginalized and vulnerable to sex trafficking.
The one-child policy and preference for sons over daughters have led to a skewed sex ratio in which men outnumber women in China. Consequently, there is an increased demand for trafficked prostitutes and wives in China. For years it was easy for China to ignore the issue of sex trafficking. Now China is running a cruel business of selling women and girls from neighboring countries. Trafficked women and girls are often from ethnic or religious minorities, poor communities, violence against women and girls is often a low priority for governments.
Children Children have been targeted by perpetrators. Those from rural areas and migrant students, as well as left-behind children whose parents have migrated to the cities and other countries, have been identified as a vulnerable population to sex trafficking. Children who are illegally adopted are vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
People in poverty
Sex traffickers in China often abduct or purchase women and girls from families in poverty or facing financial crisis, particularly the rural poor, because the victims often do not have any political power and connections and lack education about sex trafficking laws, which enables the captors to not attract much attention or publicity.
Migrants
The hukou household registration system in China has contributed to the vulnerability of internal migrants by limiting employment opportunities and reducing access to social services, particularly for Chinese victims returning from exploitation abroad.
Disabled persons
Disabled persons, including those with mental illness or who are deaf and mute, have been trafficked in and out of China by perpetrators. Traffickers target adults and children with disabilities whose parents have left them with relatives to migrate to the cities.
Ethnic and religious minorities
Women and girls from minority groups are at an increased risk of sex trafficking because of population displacements and a lack of political representation, power, and protection.
History of trafficking to China
Vietnamese women and girls were mass trafficked from Vietnam to China during French colonial rule by Chinese and Vietnamese pirates and agencies. Mung, Meo, Thai, and Nùng were the minority section of women belonging to Tonkin mountain region who were kidnapped by pirates . The anti-French Can Vuong rebels were the source of the Vietnamese bandits, while former Taiping rebels were the source of the Chinese rebels. These Vietnamese and Chinese pirates fought against the French colonial military and to gain monetary benefit they started trading women.
France Captain Louis de Louis de Grandmaison claimed that these Vietnamese women did not want to go back to Vietnam, and they had families in China and were better off in China. Vietnamese women were in demand because of a lower number of Chinese women available in China. Vietnamese women in the Red River delta were taken to China by Chinese recruitment agencies, as well as Vietnamese women who were kidnapped from villages which were raided by Vietnamese and Chinese pirates. The Vietnamese women became wives, prostitutes, or slaves.