Introduction
China is regarded as a major source, destination, and transit country of human trafficking. This illegal activity takes the form of marriages, sex, and labor that are done by force, including human smuggling and the sale and adoption of babies. The practice is further fueled by the undocumented immigrants’ status of defectors from North Korea, who are easy targets for abductions, kidnappings, forced marriages. Despite these human trafficking issues being serious, the Chinese government has failed to institute appropriate laws to mitigate them (Zheng 171). There is a need for the Chinese government to replace their current approach and form partnerships with women’s groups and grassroots organizations to identify victims of trafficking and provide legal redress to those engaged in forced labor, sex work, marriages, and the sale and adoption of babies.
Historical Background
Before the Peoples’ Republic of China was established in 1949, it was among the leading markets in the world that traded with human beings. This period dates back from the Han Dynasty to the early 20th Century when the “Nubi” people were bought and sold as enslaved people by the Chinese (Zheng 171). The Nubi was engaged on contracts stipulated they could only earn their freedom if they worked to pay back a set amount of money to their master.
In the 19th Century, most enslaved people from China were sold to other lands like America and Britain as prostitutes and laborers. Imperial families in China owned state slaves, mostly criminals and war prisoners, while merchants and wealthy landowners purchased slaves. The Chinese society was populated with slaves at all levels to meet domestic needs and provide child-rearing and reproductive services. The buying and selling of people were a practice that was tolerated and facilitated by community networks as a solution to social issues such as marriage, diminishing food reserves and frustrations with a sick child. The traffickers were family members, lovers, and neighbors. This practice was a social system that regarded people as property to be bought and sold, where household heads wielded the authority to buy and sell their concubines, children, wives, enslaved people, and servants. Most victims were females who were sold as concubines, servants, slave girls, or prostitutes to meet the needs of single men (Zheng 171). Males were also bought as adopted heirs or hereditary enslaved people.
During the Republican era of 1912-1949, this practice was criminalized due to new legal reforms. However, traffickers were still able to create new ways of avoiding the legal provisions and perpetuate the practice. They continued to supply families with reproductive, domestic, and sexual slaves through buying and selling of people (Zheng 172). Most of the traffickers were women who were useful in luring the victims by putting them at ease. In this era, the migration that was occasioned by urbanization and industrialization increased the need for traffickers to work together to abduct victims from one place and sell them to a different province.
In the Maoist era (1949-1977), the practice of human trafficking was significantly curtailed through an enforced household registration system, closure of brothels, marriage laws, and eradication of class struggles and prostitution. In 1958, the Chinese government established the household registration system that outlawed migration and mobility by managing resource distribution (Zheng 172). On the other hand, the marriage law abolished concubines, arranged marriages, and marriage through gifts or money. The laws gave women the freedom of divorce and marriage and the right to property inheritance. It also curtailed human trafficking and reduced the need to sell children for adoption. From the post-Mao era of 1978 to the present, the one-child policy provided incentives to traffickers due to the skewed sex ratio, which led to a shortage of women. There was an increased demand for reproductive, domestic, and sexual services, which increased the rate of human trafficking.
The Extent of Human Trafficking
There is the limited official information on the extent of human trafficking in China and researchers have to rely on reports from organizations such as Human Rights Watch and other NGOs. China is not only a source of human trafficking but also a transit and destination country of forced labor, marriages, sex, human smuggling, and child adoption. Between 2000 and 2013, an estimated 92,8521 women and children were sold in China. However, the number declined in 2000 from 21,814 to 2,500 between 2003 and 2008 due to a crackdown on trafficking by the government (Zheng 172). The number is believed to be higher than what is officially recorded.
The US Department of State recently downgraded China from the Tier 2 Watch list to Tier 3 concerning forced labor and human trafficking (Zheng 172). The Chinese government has often been accused of complicity in forced labor by extra-judicially detaining drug users in facilities, lack of social services for trafficked victims, and a lack of criminalization policies for human traffickers, including forced repatriation of North Korean immigrants.
Forced Marriages
Victims who are trafficked for forced marriages are usually in the age bracket of between 12 years to 50 years within a price range of $1,000 – $6,500. Reports indicate that about 90% of these victims come from Guizhou, Anhui, Hunan, Henan, Yunnan, and Sichuan Provinces. They are usually sold in underdeveloped areas of China like Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, and Zhejiang. These are areas where the gender ratio is skewed with a serious shortage of women. Women from other countries such as Laos, Russia, Mongolia, North Korea, the Americas, Vietnam, and Myanmar are also sold into forced marriages in China. The major source of this problem is China’s one-child policy (Zheng 172). Victims of human trafficking experience emotional, physical, psychological, and cultural traumas caused by violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and rape.
Forced labor
In China, forced labor is mainly concentrated in detention facilities and prison camps. The Chinese criminal justice system stipulates that rehabilitation be done through labor by criminals who have committed offenses ranging from drugs, prostitution, religious offenses, and government criticism. They are remanded for up to four years in jail without trial and forced to manufacture military uniforms and clothing for the police and the domestic market. They manufacture consumer goods such as silk flowers, coat linings, and Christmas trappings for export to countries like South Korea, the US, and Europe (Zheng 173). Camp officials sometimes purchase small-time offenders in times of shortages for a paltry $130 for six months.
Forced Prostitution
Women from Vietnam, North Korea, Burma, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand, and the Philippines migrate to China to work as prostitutes. However, studies have indicated that no overarching national or international criminal groups are involved in this kind of trade. Most sex workers are not recruited but do so voluntarily to pursue a better life (Zheng 174). Internally, most women from rural areas migrate to urban areas to work as prostitutes due to the relaxation of the household registration system.
Human Smuggling and Baby Sales
Other forms of human trafficking include the sale of babies and human smuggling. It is estimated that nearly 200,000 children are sold to foster parents abroad from China for adoption. The preference for male children and the one-child policy have forced many to sell their children to avoid enforcement (Zheng 174). The out-of-plan babies are informally sold for adoption by both parents and family planning officials. On the other hand, reports indicate that illegal Chinese migrants seek traffickers to help them move out of China to search for better lives abroad. These traffickers are not criminals per se but neighbors or friends of migrants who get paid when the migrant reaches their destination country. Moreover, local officials also contract with these traffickers to smuggle their family members out of China at discounted prices. Since legitimate immigration is strict, Chinese with low social status use illegal means to migrate out of the country, using these traffickers as facilitators (Zheng, 174). They use the traffickers to bypass or overcome restrictions to their mobility to become illegal immigrants.
Recommendations and Conclusion
Given the evidence presented here, the following recommendations and suggestions need to be considered for the current policies employed by the Chinese government to combat human trafficking.
- The Chinese government should distinguish between prostitution and human trafficking to put effective procedures for identifying victims of forced marriages, forced labor, and forced sex work to offer adequate protection services and social support to local and international victims in the country. Despite these human trafficking issues being significant in China, their current campaigns and laws have failed to underscore their importance. Instead, they have focused much of their attention on police raids in entertainment establishments, punishing sex workers, including movement and border controls. Moreover, they force women into detention camps where they are still susceptible to sexual assault by police or operate underground in more dangerous surroundings. This approach needs to change by incorporating local groups in its fight against human trafficking.
- The top-down strategy employed by the Chinese government in its fight against human trafficking needs to change by forming partnerships with women groups and grassroots organizations to identify human trafficking victims and prevent forced labor. The crackdowns by police have presented opportunities for corrupt practices and scared away voluntary sex workers who could be useful in identifying genuine victims of human trafficking.
Work Cited
Zheng, Tiantian. “Human Trafficking in China.” Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences, vol. 3, no. 3, 2018. DOI:10.15406/jhaas.