China under hot water over human trafficking horrors

Recent cases of individuals from different countries including Sri Lanka being trafficked to China or Chinese companies with the promise of high salaries have been in the spotlight as it is a warning for everyone to keep a wary eye on recruitment traps overseas. According to reports, these individuals end up being trapped in illegal activities including telecom scams and online gambling. 

The recent incident in connection to human trafficking is where eight youth had been trafficked to Chinese company in Myanmar with the promise of giving jobs. The tragedy is that one of the victims who was suffering from a heart attack had been put in a dark room for no reason. According to reports, he was in a critical condition that he needed to be admitted to a hospital. However, regardless of the critical state of the person, the officials of the Chinese company showed no mercy on him.          

In this context, the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Myanmar had informed the Sri Lankan authorities to intervene into the incident and repatriation of the youths. Accordingly, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has informed the Ministry of Defence to take immediate actions in this regard.   

The suspect who is responsible for taking the youths to Myanmar is also charged with a similar incident where he had trafficked several youths from the southern part of the country.    
  
Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy had rescued 13 Chinese nationals who were trafficked to Sri Lanka, and were forced to engage in illegal activities such as telecom scams and internet gambling, The victims were subject to threats against their lives and suffered physical abuses from corporal punishment and torture when they failed to accomplish their tasks or when they attempted to escape, the embassy said. 

The Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka quickly coordinated with local police to carry out rescue operations upon learning of this situation, captured key members of the telecom fraud gang and the suspects involved in illegally harming and detaining the victims, and successfully rescued the 13 Chinese nationals who were trapped by the scheme after they believed the so-called high salary, low threshold, short working hours, and enjoyable traveling welfare and other overseas job recruitment information. 
In recent years, online gambling and telecom fraud have caused social problems in Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka, with some Chinese nationals falling victims to murder, kidnapping and human trafficking. Some people are lured to overseas by the promise of high salaries. 

Against this backdrop, the draconian one-child policy implemented by the CCP from 1979 to 2015 caused a severe imbalance in the ratio of males and females in China. Many villagers bribed medical personnel to reveal the sex of their unborn child, and aborted the fetus when it was found to be a girl. Today men in China thus outnumber women by nearly 30 million. This has generated a huge demand among single men to “buy” wives, leading to the widespread trafficking of women in rural China.

Thus, it is apparent that despite China has asserted that it has legislated “to eliminate discrimination against women, protect women’s freedom of marriage, and achieve gender equality, China has done little to address the problem. 

The true magnitude of China's human trafficking problem remains unknown because the Chinese government has failed to disclose detailed law enforcement statistics for five years in a row, and there is no official record of human trafficking victims. According to one study, between 2017 and 2020, Chinese courts handled the cases of over 1,250 women who were victims of trafficking and sold as spouses to men in various regions of China.

Regardless of the precise figures, it is clear that every year, many young girls are abducted by human traffickers and taken to China’s remote countryside, where they will endure a miserable existence, often for the remainder of their lives. 

In conclusion, law enforce authorities have reminded the public to stay vigilant and make sure to go overseas for work through a regular and legal labor agency, without falling prey to false recruitment ads that promise high salaries and benefits, which can not only endanger personal safety but also lead to crimes.