User:Willa Wei/Sex trafficking in China

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In this wiki article, I have added specific information about which countries women are trafficked to China and which countries Chinese women are trafficked to. Then I talked about the reasons why China has a serious human trafficking problem and how much money victims of sex trafficking are sold for. In the "Victims" section, I discussed Chinese polices' achievement in rescuing trafficked women and why it is difficult to rescue trafficked women in China.

Next I am going to edit:

Laws protecting women from trafficking in China.

Anti-trafficking campaign and the sex industry in urban China  

Zheng. (2010). Sex trafficking, human rights and social justice. Routledge.

All things I edited are in bold.

Article body：

Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China.China, the world's second-most populous country, has the second highest number of human trafficking victims in the world. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.

Sex trafficking victims in the country are from all ethnic groups in China and foreigners. Chinese citizens, primarily women and girls, have been sex trafficked to the various provinces of China, as well as other countries in Asia and different continents. Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. 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 them into prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation. Chinese women are usually trafficked to Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Many Chinese victims have been detected in overseas Chinese expatriate communities. Chinese prostitutes are trafficked overseas, especially in places where there is demand from Chinese male laborers and construction workers. 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, abuse and 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.

Bride Trafficking In China

The one-child policy in China has resulted in a significant gender imbalance, with an excess of 30 to 40 million more males than females in the country today. The result of the policy further amplified the longstanding problem of bride trafficking in China. A significant number of trafficked women and girls entering China originate from ethnic or religious minority backgrounds, or they are individuals who have become victims of prolonged conflicts and displacement in their respective regions. Brokers often deceive these women and girls by promising lucrative job opportunities on the Chinese side of the border. Once these women and girls arrive in China and are sold to Chinese families, they are likely to be imprisoned and forced to bear children against their will.

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 rapers 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

Main article: Women in China

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

Main article: Poverty in China

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

Main article: Migration in China

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

Main article: Disability in China

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

Main article: Ethnic minorities in China

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

See also: Sex trafficking in Vietnam

Vietnamese women and girls were mass trafficked from Vietnam to China during French colonial rule by Chinese and Vietnamese pirates and agencies. 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.

Vietnamese women were viewed in China as "inured to hardship, resigned to their fate, and in addition of very gentle character" so they were in demand as concubines and servants. The massive traffick of Tongkinese (North Vietnamese) women to China started in 1875. Southern Chinese ports were the destination of the children and women who were kidnapped by Chinese pirates from the area around Haiphong in Vietnam. Children and pretty women were taken by the pirates in their raids on Vietnamese villages.

Mung, Meo, Thai, and Nung 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.

Brothels in Bangkok bought kidnapped Vietnamese women fleeing South Vietnam after the Vietnam war who were taken by pirates.

Foreigners

Foreign women and girls from Russia, Vietnam, Mongolia, North Korea Myanmar, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries have been trafficked into China for sexual exploitation. They experience difficulties being rescued because they do not speak Chinese and have no identification documents.

The United Nations Human Rights Council 'Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea' (February 2014) stated that a number of North Korean women in China were trafficked and sexually exploited. North Korean women's customers (or "husbands") are mostly Chinese men and ethnic Korean-Chinese men. Authorities continue to detain and deport North Korean sexually trafficked victims who may face severe punishment or death upon their repatiration. The majority of North Korean refugees leaving the DPRK are women. The Chinese government's refusal to recognize these women as refugees denies them legal protection and may encourage the trafficking of North Korean women and girls within China. Many children born to Chinese fathers and North Korean mothers remain deprived of basic rights to education and other public services, owing to their lack of legal resident status in China, which constitute violations of the PRC Nationality Law and the convention on the Rights of the Child.

Overseas Chinese

Main article: Overseas Chinese

Chinese women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in countries throughout the world. Some are deceived into prostitution or confined to private homes where they are raped.

Many Chinese victims sex trafficked into the United States are forced to work in brothels disguised as massage parlors. Money collected by operators is transferred to superiors in China at times.

Chinese women and girls have been sex trafficked in Chinese owned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators but they only serve Chinese male clients who visit or work at those offshore gaming operators according to the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation, the pimps and clients of the prostitutes being both Chinese men residing in the Philippines, not local Filipino men or other foreigners in the Philippines.

Vietnamese, Chinese and other victims have been sex trafficked to businesses catering to people seeing the Southeast Asian Games and other sports event.