China's One Child Policy and Male Surplus as a Source of Demand for Sex Trafficking to China
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CHINA'S ONE CHILD POLICY AND
MALE SURPLUS AS A SOURCE OF DEMAND
FOR SEX TRAFFICKING TO CHINA
By
ANDREW THOMAS HALL
______
A Thesis Submitted to the Honors College
in Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelor of Arts Degree
with Honors in
International/Interdisciplinary Studies
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
May 2 0 1 0
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Dr. Wayne Decker
Department of International Studies Hall 2
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Name: Hall, Andrew Thomas
Degree title: Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Honors area: International/Interdisciplinary Studies
Date thesis submitted to Honors College: May 5, 2010
Title of honors thesis: “China's One Child Policy and male surplus as a source of demand for sex trafficking to China.”
I hereby grant to the University of Arizona Library the nonexclusive worldwide right to reproduce and distribute my thesis and abstract (herein, the “licensed materials”), in whole or in part, in any and all media of distribution and in any format in existence now or developed in the future. I represent and warrant to the University of Arizona that the licensed materials are my original work, that I am the sole owner of all rights in and to the licensed materials, and that none of the licensed materials infringe or violate the rights of others. I further represent that I have obtained all necessary rights to permit the University of Arizona Library to reproduce and distribute any nonpublic third party software necessary to access, display, run or print my thesis. I acknowledge that University of Arizona Library may elect not to distribute my thesis in digital format if, in its reasonable judgment, it believes all such rights have not been secured.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper would not have been possible if not for the generous support and assistance of a number of individuals. I would especially like to thank Dr. Karna Walter, my major advisor and thesis advisor, for her support and guidance not only with this paper, but in all things related to trafficking; Dr. Wayne Decker, the director of the University of Arizona International Studies program and a simultaneously knowledgeable and approachable man; my fantastic proofreaders
—Katie Greene, John Hall, and Matthew Hall—for their invaluable assistance in polishing this paper; Katie Resendiz and the Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking for their pioneering work; the University of Arizona New Abolitionists and the Tucson Anti-trafficking Coalition for their creative, exuberant, and local grassroots activism; International Justice Mission for its professionalism and its inspiring vision of true justice; and the members of Intervarsity Christian
Fellowship, for the love and support they have given me during college.
I give deep thanks also to my family—Mom, Dad, Matt, Stephen, and Phil, for their grace and understanding even when I was stressed out, and of course, to my lovely and kind fiance Chelsea, the love of my life, who has been my sanity, joy, and peace through it all. Most importantly, I would like to thank God—the author of justice and the inspiration of abolitionists from Moses to William Wilberforce to Frederick Douglass to Gary Haugen. In Christ I have unswerving hope and expectant faith in the power of love to renew all things. To God be the glory.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I [the LORD] have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and
untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” —Isaiah 58:6 Hall 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Reproduction and Distribution Release Form 2
Acknowledgements 3
Abstract 6
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Used 7
List of Tables, Graphs, and Maps 9
Introduction 10
Part 1: The One Child Policy 11
History of the Policy 11
Unforeseen Effects of the One Child Policy: The “Missing Girls”
Phenomenon 12
Sex Selection 17
Potential Causes for China's Sex Ratio Imbalance Other Than Sex
Selection 19
Missing Girls in Asia and Beyond 22
Part 2: Potential Effects of the One Child Policy 23
Human Trafficking: Definitions and Types 24
Scope of Human Trafficking in China 26
Forced Prostitution 28
Forced Marriage: “Mail-order Brides” 30
Child Trafficking for Future Marriage 32
Trafficking in Sex-related Businesses 34 Hall 5
Part 3: The Economics of Sex Trafficking 36
The Demand Side of Sex Trafficking 37
The Supply Side of Sex Trafficking 39
Rural China 40
The Greater Mekong Subregion 41
North Korea 43
Part 4: Implications of Increased Trafficking in China 45
HIV/AIDS and Other Sexually-transmitted Infections 45
Non-traditional Security and Destabilizing Effects of Increased
Criminality 49
Part 5: Policy Recommendations 50
The Chinese Government Addressing the “Front End”: Correcting
the Sex Ratio Imbalance 51
The Chinese Government Addressing the “Back End”: Dealing with
Sex Trafficking and Prostitution 54
Law and Corruption in the PRC 58
The US Government 61
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) 65
Inter-governmental Organizations (IGOs) 68
Conclusion 71
Reference List 73 Hall 6
ABSTRACT
The Chinese government cites the country's controversial One Child Policy as a key factor in
China's economic rise over the last few decades. Lower birth rates, they argue, correlate to more rapid development. However, in a society with a deeply-rooted preference for sons, the policy has caused an unforeseen uptake in female infanticide and feticide, translating to a drastic imbalance in sex ratios in Chinese demography, particularly among under-20 Chinese. With some 40 million men unable to find wives by 2020, China faces an unprecedented demographic problem. One of the most devastating effects of the One Child Policy and sex ratio imbalance is a sharp uptake in demand for sex trafficking to China, particularly forced prostitution and trafficking for marriage. More sex trafficking in China may spell disaster not only for hundreds of thousands of women and girls trafficked for sex, but also for Chinese society at large—sex trafficking accelerates the spread of HIV and compromises national security as borders become more porous and organized crime becomes more ubiquitous. The Chinese government, the US government, inter-governmental organizations like the UN and ASEAN, and non-governmental organizations each have specific roles to play in curbing the flow of sex trafficking in China. Hall 7
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS USED
ACWF All-China Women's Federation
ADB Asian Development Bank
AIDS acquired immune deficiency syndrome
ARTIP Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project (Australia)
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
CATW Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
COMMIT Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking
EFCM excess female child mortality
FSW female sex worker
GAATW Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
GMS Greater Mekong Subregion
G/TIP Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (US)
HIV human immunodeficiency virus
IGO inter-governmental organization
ILO International Labour Organization
IPEC International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour
IPPF International Planned Parenthood Federation
IUD intrauterine device
MSM men who have sex with men
NGO non-governmental organization Hall 8
NPFPC National Population and Family Planning Commission (China)
PRC The People's Republic of China
SRB sex ratio at birth
STI sexually-transmitted infection
TIP trafficking in persons
TVPA Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UN GIFT United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNIAP United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
WGHRD Working Group on Human Resource Development Hall 9
LIST OF TABLES, GRAPHS, AND MAPS
Figure 1: Sex Ratio at Birth by Province in 1982, 1990, and 2000 14
Table 1: Sex Ratio at Birth Figures by Province from Tabulation on the 2000 PRC
Census 15
Figure 2: Sex Ratio in the 1-4 Age Group by Province from 2005 Intercensus Survey 16
Figure 3: China's Male and Female Infant Mortality Rate (per 1000), 1963-1995 22
Figure 4: Factors Influencing Sex Selection in Asia 23
Figure 5: Geographic Distribution of Estimated 2007 Cases of HIV/AIDS by Province 47
Figure 6: Annual Reported HIV-positives and AIDS Cases in China, 1985-2007 47 Hall 10
Introduction
The development of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in recent decades is touted as an unprecedented economic miracle, pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. The forces of globalization have capitalized on China's open-and-reform policies enacted under Deng
Xiaoping to revolutionize China's economy, which, among other things, has resulted in staggering rural-to-urban migration of over 200 million people within China that continues to this day. Not only have Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders hailed China's remarkable economic success, but also foreign observers of many stripes.
The Chinese government is quick to credit much of their rapid development to the controversial One Child Policy, originally enacted in 1979 and into 1980. Initially an effort to curb alarming population growth rates in the PRC, the law states that, with only a few exceptions, Chinese married couples may have no more than one child. The CCP argues that lower birth rates are correlated with more rapid economic development, and that China's economic rise would not have been possible if China (already the world's most populous nation) had allowed the additional 300 million births the One Child Policy is thought to have prevented
(Too 2006). But in a culture with a strong preference for sons over daughters, the One Child
Policy can be a death sentence for baby girls in particular. The policy has led to devastating levels1 of sex-selective abortions, which have largely replaced the traditional sex selection method of female infanticide. Now, more than three decades since the policy was first put in effect, this glaring sex-ratio imbalance is becoming more and more apparent and problematic for
1 Here and throughout this thesis, it must be noted that phenomena such as sex-selective abortion and trafficking are by nature clandestine, and thus they form a research field that seems to defy precision. Often, as in this instance, precise numbers simply cannot be obtained. The reader should also be advised to take the numbers that do appear in this paper with a grain of salt, acknowledging that many are little more than best guesses. And finally, let the reader remember that the precise magnitude of these occurrences does not change their seriousness and should not affect the urgency with which parties act to combat them. Hall 11 the PRC. In fact, middle-of-the-road estimates state that there are currently between 32 million and 40 million more males under age 20 in China than females (Zhu et. al., 2008, 1; China's
2004). In other words, 32 to 40 million boys in China today will not be able to find a wife in the coming decade or two.
This historically unprecedented demographic trend is affecting Chinese society in various ways, but one in particular is appearing more and more on the international policy radar: a drastic increase in sex trafficking to and within China as a result of the One Child Policy. Such a plethora of unmarried men provide a large economic demand for sex trafficking of various kinds, which opportunistic criminal entrepreneurs in turn seek to satiate with a supply of human beings sold as sex slaves or trafficked into forced marriage. Human trafficking is increasing at an alarming rate in the PRC, and if left unchecked, could be disastrous not only for millions of individual women, but also for the PRC as a whole. Urgent action to end sex selection and sex trafficking is needed from various concerned parties, including the Chinese government, the US government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and inter-governmental organizations
(IGOs).
Part 1: The One Child Policy
History of the Policy
Beginning in Guangdong Province in 1980, local Chinese officials, under orders to limit population growth in the province to 1%, began to impose fertility-related regulations. Women had to wait at least four years after their first child was born to have a second, and third children were strictly forbidden. Additionally, “all women who had borne three or more children before Hall 12
November 1, 1979, were also required to be sterilized” (Mosher 2006, 78-79).
By 1981, Chinese President Deng Xiaoping had worked to make this policy a national initiative, formally called the “technical initiative on family planning,” but more commonly known as the One Child Policy. The policy is still in effect today and applies to most Chinese couples2, mandating “IUDs [intrauterine devices] for women of childbearing age with one child, sterilization for couples with two children (usually performed on the woman), and [forced] abortions for women pregnant without authorization,” including unmarried women and urban women who already have their one child (Mosher 2006, 79). Deng ordered officials to carry out the policy stringently and “use whatever means you must” (Mosher 2006, 80).
Western population-control advocates initially welcomed China's new policy, hailing it as original and ambitious enough to significantly assist in the goal of limiting world population growth. A $50 million grant even came in from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) over the first five years (Mosher 2006, 82). Other donors included the International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the World Bank, and China received praise from the US, the
UN, and other influential organizations. There was even some talk of exporting the PRC's model of population control for use in other nations.
Unforeseen Effects of the One Child Policy—The “Missing Girls” Phenomenon
It soon became clear, however, that the policy had some unanticipated and disturbing side
2 While the One Child Policy applies to the majority of Chinese citizens, there are some exceptions to it. First, it only applies to the ethnic majority Han people, for fear that any effort to enforce it among ethnic minority groups such as Tibetans or Uighurs would fall under international law's definition of genocide. Second, in rural areas where extra help is needed in agriculture, couples may be allowed a second child if the first is a girl (Congressional-Executive 2006, 109). Third, couples made up of two only children are allowed to have a second child, effectively just replacing themselves demographically. And finally, the One Child Policy may not affect especially wealthy Chinese families, some of whom intentionally and willingly pay fines of US$100,000 or more for the privilege of a second child. Hall 13 effects. China's centuries-old preference for sons, who carry on the family name, provide labor
(particularly in agriculture), and essentially serve as a retirement plan for at least 90% of rural parents (China's 2004; Hudson and den Boer 2004, 155), when coupled with a state-imposed one child limit, began to spell doom for female fetuses and infants for a variety of reasons. As fertility declined, male-to-female sex ratio at birth (SRB), a measure of how many boys are born per 100 girls born, began to rise, as did the level of excess female child mortality (EFCM) (Li et. al., 2007, 25). The result is the so-called “missing girls” phenomenon. Scholars first began to notice the issue of missing girls in the mid-1980's, and for the past couple of decades, the topic has been of concern to the academic community, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local and national Chinese government bodies, and the international community. As shown in Figure
1, SRBs have skyrocketed dramatically in the last 30 years to historically unprecedented and gravely troubling levels—China's overall SRB is a disturbingly high 117.52, and five provinces report SRBs of over 130. Jiangxi Province, the province with the highest SRB, reports that a dizzying 138.01 boys are born for every 100 girls born (see Table 1). Figure 2 assesses the sex ratio among children one to four years old by province in 2005, essentially accounting for not only SRB but also EFCM in the first four years of life. This study seems to point to high levels of EFCM in many of the same provinces that have the among the highest SRBs.
The official Chinese government figure is that there are 13 million more young boys than young girls in China today, (China's 2004), but this number is widely believed to be a far too conservative estimate. Other figures vary widely, but most scholars agree that males under age
20 in China outnumber females under age 20 by at least 32 million, (Zhu et. al., 2008, 1), with some citing a figure of 50 million (Missing 2006). By the year 2020, there are expected to be 40 Hall 14
Figure 1: Sex Ratio at Birth by Province in 1982, 1990, and 2000 (Source: Li et. al., 2007, 29) Hall 15
Table 1: Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) Figures by Province from Tabulation on the 2000 PRC Census (source: Smith 2007, 14)
Province SRB Anhui 130.76 Beijing 114.58 Chongqing 115.80 Fujian 120.26 Gansu 119.35 Guangdong 137.76 Guangxi 128.80 Guizhou 105.37 Hainan 135.04 Hebei 118.46 Heilongjiang 107.52 Henan 130.30 Hubei 128.02 Hunan 126.92 Inner Mongolia 108.48 Jiangsu 120.19 Jiangxi 138.01 Jilin 109.87 Liaoning 112.17 Ningxia 107.99 Qinghai 103.52 Shaanxi 125.15 Shandong 113.49 Shanghai 115.51 Shanxi 112.75 Sichuan 116.37 Tianjin 112.97 Tibet 97.43 Xinjiang 106.65 Yunnan 110.57 Zhejiang 113.11 Overall Total 117.52 Hall 16
Figure 2: Sex Ratio in the 1-4 Age Group by Province from 2005 Intercensus Survey (Source: Zhu et. al., 2008, 5) Hall 17 million men of marriageable age in China who will be unable to find a wife, (China's 2004). The
BBC has reported that “China has 70 million bachelors unable to find wives” (BBC News Online
2003), and in their book Bare Branches, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer go so far as to claim that “between 80 million and 111 million Chinese men will not be able to find wives,”
(Hudson and den Boer 2004, 131), although these figures are based on somewhat older information and may be less reliable. Obviously, with estimates varying so drastically, nobody knows for sure just how severely skewed the male-to-female ratio is in China, but one thing is clear: it far surpasses the normal biological sex ratio variance, suggesting that external forces have shifted SRBs and/or female infant mortality up precipitously.
The natural question, then, is what are these forces? Why are tens of millions of girls missing from the Chinese population? This question has been the subject of much controversy and debate in recent decades.
Sex Selection
Most scholars contend that the primary cause of China's soaring SRB is sex-selective abortion, also called female feticide—couples deliberately aborting female fetuses so that their one child can be a boy. Not coincidentally, sex-selective abortion has increased in conjunction with the advent of readily accessible sonogram technology that can determine a fetus' sex. Since the mid-to-late 1980's, ultrasounds have been pretty widely available in China.
Because the PRC government is at least nominally concerned with the problem of sex- selective abortion, it is illegal in China for ultrasound technicians to disclose the sex of a fetus for fear that disclosure might lead to sex selection. Ultrasounds may only be used for purposes related to the fetus' health, and at least two doctors must be present in the room at all times Hall 18 during an ultrasound to ensure that the fetus' sex is not disclosed to the couple (China's 2004).
These restrictions have been ineffective in curbing the use of sonograms to determine fetus' sex, however, instead simply moving the practice underground. Illegal Chinese sonogram clinics, often located less-than-clandestinely in storefronts and ignored by police, use inexpensive ultrasound machines that cost as little as $360 to offer low-cost fetus sex- determination services. Black market ultrasound technology is so easily accessible and compact that there was reportedly even a case in which an illegal roving ultrasound van was discovered
(Too, 2006). Clearly, if a couple wants to determine the sex of their fetus to make a decision about sex selection, such services are readily available with little risk on the black market.
In a country where boys are still very much valued over girls, and where couples are only allowed one child, a simple sonogram can mean disaster for a female fetus. It is impossible to know with high accuracy exactly how many total abortions are performed in the PRC each year, but hospital data alone put the figure at a staggering 13 million annually. This figure is almost surely lower than the true total, since it is widely known that many Chinese women seek abortions in unregistered clinics, and since this figure does not account for forced abortions ordered to enforce the One Child Policy (AsiaNews 2009). Abortion is also widely used as birth control: “'Nearly half of the women seeking abortions did not use any form of contraception,' Wu
Shangchun, a government official with the National Population and Family Planning
Commission (NPFPC), was quoted as saying” (ibid.). Clearly, not all (and probably not most) of these 13 million abortions are cases of sex selection, but the dramatically skewed gender demographics in the younger Chinese population seem to point to the fact that a sizable minority are in fact instances of deliberate female feticide. Hall 19
Sex-selective abortion is by no means universal, but based on the available data it appears to be disturbingly widespread, largely (though not totally) replacing the more ancient Chinese methods of sex selection: female infanticide or abandonment after birth3. China has a history of sex selection and EFCM stretching back for thousands of years, but the advent of ultrasound technology has ushered in a new era of Chinese sex selection which today mostly occurs prior to birth. With abortion replacing infanticide, sex selection becomes even more hidden, and thus, even more nefarious and complex.
Potential Causes for China's Sex Ratio Imbalance Other Than Sex Selection
While sex-selective abortion is the most-discussed explanation for the sex ratio imbalance in the PRC, some scholars suggest that other factors may at least play some contributing role. For example, Emily Oster argues that up to 75% of China's SRB imbalance results from the increased probability of women who are infected with Hepatitis B (a widespread disease in
China's population) giving birth to sons (Oster 2005, 1164). Oster contends that Hepatitis B infection may increase natural SRB as high as 1.44:1, which would produce a sizable male surplus in a population with high rates of Hepatitis B infection. Therefore, according to Oster,
China's missing women are largely not a symptom of ubiquitous female feticide. A later study by the same researcher revises the argument somewhat, stating that the father's Hepatitis B status is more closely correlated with a high SRB than the mother's (Blumberg and Oster 2007), but still holding that Hepatitis B is the primary cause for China's alarming SRB.
This claim is disputed at best. Monica Das Gupta, writing for the World Bank, asserts that
3 Even today, killing or abandonment of baby girls after birth is not unheard of in the PRC, especially in more traditional rural areas. Drowning is the best-known and most well-established method of infanticide (Li and Feldman 1996, 249). Thankfully, however, female infanticide appears to be on the decline in recent decades. Hall 20
Oster's conclusions are based on dubious data, e.g., using sample sizes low enough not to be reliable, and downplaying the case of sub-Saharan Africa, where SRBs are relatively low and
Hepatitis B rates are relatively high. Das Gupta adds that China's girls go “missing” much more often when they have an older sister4, as evidenced in the enormous sample size of the 1990
Chinese census, which “shows that the only group of women with elevated probabilities of bearing a son is those who have already borne daughters” (Das Gupta 2008, 4, emphasis in original). For a couple's second (and almost certainly final) child, when the first is a girl, SRB is especially high, indicating a far more pronounced son preference when it is a couple's “last chance” for a boy. In contrast, families with one boy already born report that second children are actually slightly more likely to be female than male, suggesting an increase in the desirability of a girl once a prized boy is safely procured. The strong correlation between female first children and an increased SRB among second children points to cultural rather than biological causes of the missing girls phenomenon (ibid.).
Another theory attempting to explain China's missing girls has to do with underreporting of female births, particularly in rural areas (Merli and Raftery 2000, 109).
In a context in which the number of children is determined by state policy and the desire for a son is strong, neither individuals nor birth planning cadres have great incentives to report births followed by infant deaths, births not approved by the birth planning system, or female births....officials have [even] instructed respondents to underreport recent births in areas where fertility remained higher than the target figures, or have prepared answers for [fertility survey] respondents to submit.
The data set from Merli and Raftery's study also suggest that in some instances, families report a second-born son as a first child, leaving a firstborn girl unreported. These factors likely have some bearing on the official demographic data pointing to missing girls, but the effect is still almost certainly too small to explain the drastic sex ratio imbalance measured in the PRC's
4 Obviously this can only be the case for families who are exempt from the One Child Policy, as discussed above. Hall 21 population.
A final factor driving China's overall male-to-female ratio up besides sex-selective abortion is EFCM—the higher percentage of girls who die early in life as compared to boys.
EFCM “is usually explained by sex discrimination against female infants in socioeconomic and health-oriented categories, such as in the supply of nutrition, food, and medical care” (Li and
Feldman 1996, 249). Statistically, under natural conditions, 130 male infants die on average for every 100 female infants who die, due to increased likelihood of congenital disease among baby boys. Yet even with this strong biological disparity in favor of female survival, more girl infants die in China than boy infants, suggesting gender-discriminatory bias in infant care across the population as a whole (Hudson and den Boer 2004, 175). As shown in Figure 3, female infant mortality rates have steadily risen relative to male infant mortality rates over the last several decades in China, and female infant mortality has surpassed male infant mortality since the beginning of the One Child Policy. Chinese couples whose first child dies at a young age are allowed to have another child under the One Child Policy, arguably providing an incentive not to take good care of girl children among couples who have a strong son preference.
Although it is becoming less common, in extreme cases and in rural areas, son preference is sometimes still so entrenched that it manifests itself in the drowning of baby girls, in keeping with the millenia-old Chinese practice of female infanticide (Li and Feldman 1996, 249). Some baby girls are also routinely abandoned. Some of these eventually find their way to orphanages; others are not so lucky.
All things considered, hepatitis B, underreporting of births, and EFCM, even when all combined, would not distort natural SRBs to the level observed in China today. Most scholars Hall 22
Figure 3: China's Male and Female Infant Mortality Rate (per 1000), 1966- 1995 (source: Hudson and den Boer 2004, 177) agree, therefore, that while other factors may play some role in the SRB imbalance, China's missing girls are largely the product of sex-selective abortion.
Missing Girls in Asia and Beyond
It must be acknowledged that the missing girls phenomenon is by no means unique to
China. Although the One Child Policy is specific to China, the missing girls problem is already severe and in many cases measurably worsening in countries across Asia due to son preference and increasing access to sonogram technology. Besides China, many other Asian states number their own missing girls in the hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions, including
India5 (Missing 2006; Arokiasamy 2007), Pakistan (Missing 2006), Bangladesh (Sen 2003),
Vietnam (UN Population Fund 2009), Singapore (Graham 2007), and the Koreas (Kim and Song
2007). Some North African countries also report missing girls (Sen 2003, 1297). Combined there are thought to be at least 100 million total females missing from the world population if not more
(Sen 1992, 587; Missing 2006).
5 India's missing girls problem is particularly severe, thought to be comparable to China's if not worse. With the two most populous nations on the planet both reporting tens of millions of missing women, global gender disparity is a quickly worsening and increasingly complex debacle. Hall 23
Figure 4: Factors influencing sex selection in Asia (source: United Nations Population Fund, 2009)
Part 2: Potential Effects of the One Child Policy
The One Child Policy was initially conceived purely as a method of population control and enacted to decrease China's birth rate. However, now that the policy has been in effect for over 30 years, and sex selection has occurred for that entire period, the policy has led to several unforeseen and unintended side effects which are of increasing concern. China's drastic male surplus leads to several key questions. How will the presence of 40-million-some unmarried bachelors, or, in Chinese vernacular, “bare branches,” (Hudson and den Boer 2004, 187), affect Hall 24
Chinese society? Will there be increasing lawlessness, alcohol and drug use, and/or socio- political unrest? Will there be a rise in extremism and terrorism? To what extent will the growing male surplus correlate with a rise in demand for prostitution, sex trafficking, and trafficking for marriage? How might such an uptake in prostitution and trafficking fuel the spread of HIV in
China? And what can be done?
While all these questions are important and worthy of further research, this thesis is concerned primarily with the issue of sex trafficking as it connects to the One Child Policy, and the implications thereof. It will prove useful to first outline what sex trafficking is (and is not), and then to examine its scope and methodology in China today.
Human Trafficking: Definitions and Types
The US State Department (2009, 6-7) defines human trafficking as either:
a. sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or b. the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
Human trafficking, then, essentially refers to participation in any aspect of the modern- day slave trade, from recruitment of slaves to their transportation to their ownership. It is important to observe that the word “trafficking” may be a bit deceptive, since physical transport of persons is not required for a situation to qualify as human trafficking under this definition. For instance, a woman could be trafficked for prostitution by a family member without ever leaving her home. The State Department's definition also divides human trafficking into two main categories: sex trafficking and labor trafficking6. The hallmarks of both are force, fraud, and
6 Although labor trafficking in China falls beyond the scope of this paper, it should be mentioned that there are real problems in this area as well. A few examples are: children being forced to beg, mentally-disabled people being used as slaves in brick factories, and even the use of state-sanctioned “re-education through labor” camps Hall 25 coercion. If any or all of these are present in an exploitative labor situation, it may well fall under the definition of trafficking.
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery. It is the second-largest—and fastest-growing— transnational crime (second only to drug trafficking). Compared with drug trafficking, which has clear laws, harsh penalties, and well-trained law enforcement personnel working against it, human trafficking is a relatively risk-free crime. In many countries, laws surrounding it may be ambiguous, and police and judges may lack training on the topic and/or may be corrupt and complicit in people trafficking. For this reason, some drug trafficking organizations are even reportedly beginning to switch their cargo to humans because the overall risk is lower.
There are more slaves in the world today than ever in human history. Estimates on the total number of slaves in the world vary, in part because, as discussed above, it is extremely difficult to collect precise data on a phenomenon that is clandestine by design. That said, the most-quoted figure, accounting for both sex trafficking and labor trafficking combined, is that there are 27 million people in slavery today. This number was first suggested by the prominent anti-trafficking NGO Free the Slaves (Free the Slaves), and has gained credence more by its frequent citation than by its empirical unassailability. Anti-trafficking author and activist David
Batstone (among others) believes the 27 million estimate to be low, because it was calculated largely as a sum of countries' self-reported trafficking data, which are often lowball figures
(Batstone 2010). The International Labour Organization (ILO) gives an estimate of “at least 12.3 million adults” (US Department of State 2009, 8) in forced labor or sexual servitude at any given time, plus an unspecified number of children. Assuming that at least 50% of trafficked people are
(US Department of State 2009, 104-105; BBC News Online 2009a; Lagon 2008, 40). More research is needed in the area of Chinese labor trafficking. Hall 26 minors, (as the US Department of State estimates [2006, 6]), this would at least double the ILO's
12.3 million figure, pointing to no less than 24.6 million total trafficked people. International
Justice Mission, another prominent anti-trafficking NGO, puts forward a guess of over 30 million (At the End 2009). The US government believes that between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked just across international borders annually, to say nothing of trafficking within individual countries. Of the total number of trafficked people, some 80% are thought to be women and girls (US Department of State 2006, 6).
China is widely known to be a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking, (US Department of State 2009, 104), most notably sex trafficking. Sex trafficking in
China can be further subdivided into various categories, including (but not limited to) forced prostitution, mail-order brides, child trafficking for future marriage, and sex-related businesses such as massage parlors or escort services. After an overview of the magnitude of China's trafficking problem, each of these areas of sex trafficking will be examined in further detail as they pertain to the PRC's male surplus.
Scope of Human Trafficking in China
According to PRC government figures, 2,256 women and children were trafficked in
China in 2009, although the Committee on the Rights of Children says that this figure is far too low since it represents only on the number of rescued victims (Vause 2009). The UN and the US
State Department also question the 2,256 figure because China's definition of what constitutes trafficking does not align with international norms7 (US Department of State 2009, 105). The US
State Department believes that between 10,000 and 20,000 women and children are trafficked in
7 See Part 5. Hall 27
China every year (Vause 2009), but this figure, too, is uncertain at best. The usual data collection difficulties associated with researching an illegal and clandestine trade are complicated further by the CCP's strict rules for foreign organizations operating in China, which make it “difficult to work independently” on research and data collection (Lagon 2008, 41). In some instances, international observers are not allowed to operate in China at all. For example, the UN High
Commissioner on Refugees has repeatedly been denied access to the Korea-China border to assess the situation of North Korean defectors in China, a group known to be especially vulnerable for trafficking, as we shall see below (Hilsum 2007, 38; US Department of State
2009, 107).
“The majority of Chinese [sex and labor] trafficking is internal,” reports Mark P. Lagon, former director of the US State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons (G/TIP) (Lagon 2008, 40). However, significant numbers of women are trafficked to the
PRC from various other Asian countries, including North Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma),
Mongolia, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Russia, Romania, and more (Lagon 2008, 40; US
Department of State 2009, 104; Yunnan Province Women's Federation 2002). As diverse as these source regions are, they generally share at least two significant commonalities: 1) poverty, and 2) a lack of opportunity for women. The desperation of poverty puts women at higher risk of being trafficked, because they are more susceptible to being lured by false job opportunities. In some cases, women even voluntarily agree to work as prostitutes merely for survival's sake, although they may not understand the full and brutal reality of what they are getting themselves into. Also, women in these countries and regions do not enjoy a wide range of opportunities. Due to a lack of education, a dearth of employment options, and a “lack [of] livelihood choices” in general Hall 28
(Yunnan Province Women's Federation 2002, 1), poor rural women in Asia are especially vulnerable to trafficking.
Forced Prostitution
Prostitution had been a feature of Chinese life for centuries, but in the early years of the
Communist era, the combination of idealistic egalitarian euphoria and authoritarian rule of law meant that prostitution was all but eliminated. Brutal dictator though he was, Mao Zedong did much to promote gender equality in China, especially at first. Indeed, Mao famously declared
“Women hold up half the sky” (Kristof and WuDunn 2009, 208). In the past few decades, however, China's rapid economic modernization and urbanization, increasing openness to
Western ideas, languishing women's movement, and liberalizing sexual attitudes have laid the groundwork for prostitution to resurface with a vengeance. Though prostitution is illegal under
Chinese law, it continues to flourish and grow today, (Lagon 2008, 40), in large part because of
China's excess men (Hudson and den Boer 2004, 205).
It is difficult to know just how many women are in prostitution in China today, but
Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn cite an estimate of “10 million or more” (Kristof and WuDunn 2009, 5-6). Even the Chinese government has admitted that there are 4 to 6 million, (Cyranoski 2005, 425), and since prostitution is seen as a failure of the CCP regime (Schuckman 2006, 89), the government figure is probably deflated to some degree. At any rate, it is clear that most of these millions of women in prostitution are not trafficking victims in forced prostitution scenarios; most are involved in prostitution willingly or relatively willingly8. However, a significant minority of prostitutes in China enjoy no freedom or agency at
8 There is, of course, heated debate among various feminists and NGOs about whether prostitution can ever truly be voluntary, or if the seemingly free choice is only a result of internalized sexism or a lack of any other Hall 29 all. They are trafficked into the sex trade and kept there through force, fraud, or coercion.
Forced prostitution is probably the most widely-known form of human trafficking, in part because it is the most shocking and salacious type for news media to report on. A typical forced prostitution scenario in China might look something like this: a young woman from a poor area in China or in a neighboring country is promised a legitimate job in the restaurant industry in urban China by an acquaintance or relative. The woman agrees to go, but upon arrival in the city, she is shocked to discover that instead of working in a restaurant, she will instead be forced to work as a prostitute to pay off a debt supposedly incurred in her transport. This debt will often be an exorbitant and arbitrary sum that increases faster than the woman can possibly pay it back, even if, as if often the case, she services 20 or 30 clients (“johns”) per day. Other factors which may add to the complexity of the trafficking victim's plight include violence or threats of violence, psychological and sexual abuse, dependency resulting from forced drug use, possible language barriers, Stockholm syndrome (a psychological phenomenon where individuals in captivity or similar situations develop a twisted love or affection for their captors), fear of police instilled by the trafficker (with or without real cause), and more.
China's rapid urbanization since 1979 has gone hand-in-hand with the resurgence of the predominantly urban problem of prostitution. But it is also necessary to turn to a more predominantly rural problem: sex trafficking in the form of forced marriage.
opportunities for survival. For instance, “the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) believes that a woman can never make a rational decision to enter the sex industry and therefore takes the view that all prostitution, and all migration for prostitution, is non-consensual [i.e., is trafficking]. The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), on the other hand, recognizes a woman's right to choose to work in the sex industry and to migrate for this purpose. The key issue from GAATW's point of view is whether the woman's choice was free and fully informed. However, this sparks further debate on whether a woman's choice is 'free' when it is based on economic necessity, that is, a need to escape extreme poverty” (Emerton 2001, 2). Hall 30
Forced Marriage—“Mail-order Brides”
Forced marriage is one of the predominant forms of sex trafficking in China. As with forced prostitution, a large percentage of bride trafficking in the country is internal, but transnational trafficking for marriage is also a problem.
Forced marriage occurs when a woman is sold to a man for the purpose of marriage.
Women in forced marriage situations are commonly referred to as “mail-order brides,” although this is a somewhat archaic and incomplete term. “[Brides] are bartered at a price that varies depending on their age, beauty and virginity” (Zhao 2003, 84). Women who are forced into marriage often find themselves with men who are poor, abusive, disabled, or some combination of these; i.e., men who would probably not have a chance to marry otherwise. The marriage may be legal and officially recognized, or it may not. Often, the “legitimizing” factor is not a marriage license or community approval, but rather, a few hired villagers tying the trafficked bride up upon arrival so that her new “husband” can rape her into submission (Liao 2005, 104).
Altogether in China, 97% of unmarried 28- to 49-year-olds are male (Zhao 2003, 87). In terms of economic demand, “Overall, China’s unbalanced sex ratios, with a high ratio of males to females, caused a huge demand for wives through illegal means” (Zhao 2003, 86). Rural areas are especially notorious for trafficking for marriage, in large part because unmarried 28- to 49- year-olds in rural areas outnumber their urban counterparts more than three to one (Zhao 2003,
87). Additionally, the exorbitant cost of putting on a wedding, which even the poorest husbands are socially expected to pay, combined with a dowry system still in effect in some rural communities, may mean that simply buying a wife outright is more cost-effective than traditional marriage (ibid.). Chinese culture, like nearly every culture, frowns upon and stigmatizes Hall 31 bachelorhood, and so men feel pressured to marry by any means necessary (Smith 2007, 19).
A convicted Chinese bride trafficker named Qian Guibao offers the following recollection, speaking of his experience in Northwest China (Liao 2005, 100):
Since most families prefer boys to girls, there weren't too many women in the region. Young men would spend years pinching pennies so they could use their savings to find a woman to marry. I felt so sorry for them. Each time they saw a woman their eyes would brighten up with lust—they were ready to mount her and fuck her immediately. My hometown in Sichuan Province was pretty poor, but I hadn't seen men as desperate as these. As you know, Sichuan women have a reputation for being industrious, good- looking, and nice to their men. Guys in the Northwestern provinces love women from Sichuan. With that in mind, I saw a money-making opportunity.
A variety of factors make women more vulnerable to becoming the “supply” of the bride trafficking equation. These factors include poverty, lack of education or job skills, illiteracy, patrilineal family structures, and more (Zhao 2003, 87-88). And while bride trafficking is by no means the norm, in rural areas it does tend to be morally tolerated due to patriarchal notions of gender (Zhao 2003, 90). Ancient Chinese marriage practices may have some bearing on contemporary rural people's understanding of marriage as well. Throughout most of Chinese history, a girl's marriage would be arranged by her parents, perhaps with the help of a matchmaker. The girl herself had no say whatsoever in the decision. When her wedding day came, (usually at a very young age, perhaps 12 years old), she would essentially be abducted from her home by the friends of her groom-to-be and taken off in a sedan chair to be married and become part of her husband's family for life, often moving so far away that she would never see her biological family again. Marital domestic violence has also been the rule rather than the exception in China for thousands of years, certainly throughout imperial Chinese history at least.
It can be argued that these social practices were precursors to contemporary bride trafficking, which is similarly marked by lack of agency, tacit community acceptance, physical and sexual violence, and in most cases, physical transport of persons for marriage. Hall 32
Many or most trafficked brides are subject to severe domestic violence and abuse. “In one case, a North Korean woman [forced into marriage] was chained up whenever her Chinese husband left the house to prevent escape” (Davis 2006, 134). Another trafficking survivor recalls:
“The man [who bought me as a bride] treated me very badly, and he was sick as well. The rest of the family watched me all the time. When I tried to escape, I was beaten badly. It was terrible. I felt like I wanted to die” (China's 2004). Trafficked brides are also at risk of being resold into another forced marriage or into prostitution if their husband tires of them (Davis 2006, 133).
The 2003 story of Chinese psychiatrist Dr. Wang Chaoying of Guangdong Province, who reportedly drugged female patients and then trafficked them as brides, is one disturbing and bizarre example of trafficking for marriage. Dr. Wang was accused of giving patients large doses of drugs to hide their mental problems before selling them as brides for the equivalent of thousands of dollars. It was further alleged that a prostitution ring involving patients operated at
Dr. Wang's clinic (BBC News Online 2003). While this story is somewhat atypical in that a well- educated man was the trafficker, it is not uncommon for bride trafficking and forced prostitution to overlap somewhat. Sometimes traffickers will serve as multipurpose criminal contractors, providing women to various buyers to serve either as brides or as prostitutes, whichever the market requires. In other cases, women forced into marriage are used exclusively as prostitutes pimped by the husband, or else the husband is the primary recipient of the woman's sexual services but also pimps her on the side.
Child Trafficking for Future Marriage
In rural areas, where SRBs are significantly higher, and where there is an exacerbated dearth of women as a result of China's rapid and feminized rural-to-urban migration for work in Hall 33 the factories9, some parents resort to buying girl children for their sons to marry when the time comes. These girls are often raised more or less as daughters of the purchasing family, but are then forced to marry the family's son, often at a remarkably young age.
Boys are trafficked in China as well as girls, often to be raised as sons in rural areas. As discussed earlier, sons carry on the family line and take care of parents in their old age. They also have higher expected earning potential in Chinese society. Young boys may be trafficked to families who would not otherwise have an heir.
Unlike adult trafficking scenarios which frequently involve deception to lure victims, child trafficking in China often begins with kidnapping. “The public security ministry says that between 2,000 and 3,000 children and young women are kidnapped every year, but the state- controlled newspapers have put the figure as high as 20,000,” which may still be a lowball estimate (Sheridan 2009). “Children in single-parent families and those of migrant workers” are at especially high risk of being kidnapped and trafficked (“Sexual” 2009). “Reliable data on the number of girls being snatched remain as hard to verify as every other crime statistic in a country of 1.3 billion people. But the police, state media, experts and parents all say the figures are going up” (Sheridan 2009).
Professor Valerie Hudson of Brigham Young University recounts a particularly disturbing tale of infant commoditization in the 60 Minutes special “Too Many Men” (2006). “The Chinese government confiscated a large plastic bag full of 28 girl babies, ranging in age from two to five months,” she reports. Having been sold to the traffickers for as little as US$8 each, the girls were on their way to be resold to rural families as future brides when the scheme was thwarted by
9 “The urban labor market is...gender-segregated [in China]. Migrant men are largely channeled to manual work such as construction, and most migrant women are directed to factory and domestic work....Tam's (2000) study of a factory in Shenzhen [reported that]...99% of the assembly-line workers are women...” (Fan 2003, 27). Hall 34 police. This especially dramatic example of the human cost of trafficking may be unique in terms of severity, but not in terms of scope. Regrettably, the only other unusual aspect of this story is that the Chinese police actually caught the traffickers, which by all indications is an all-too-rare occurrence.
Traffickers can turn major profits on selling children. Toddlers sold by one trafficking ring fetched between US$125 and US$3,800 (BBC News Online 2009c). Another convicted trafficker reports that boys brought in higher profits than girls did—US$1,200 compared to
US$200 (Vause 2009). Higher-end estimates put revenues at US$6,100 for boys and US$500 for girls (BBC News Online 2009b). The price of trafficked children may vary based on gender, age, geographical region, beauty, and more. Whether the final sale of a child fetches hundreds or thousands of dollars in revenue is somewhat irrelevant—what is important to see is that human trafficking is a lucrative business with minimal risk, and that is why the trade is growing so fast.
Vice Minister of the PRC's Family Planning Commission Zhao Baiga acknowledges that
“Lately, there's been a surge in trafficking in girls” who will become wives (Too 2006). But despite the lip-service of government officials and the occasional state-run newspaper reports of child traffickers' arrests in China designed fend off Western critiques of China's regime, the
PRC's efforts to combat child trafficking have yielded few results to date.
Trafficking in Sex-Related Businesses
In some cases, trafficked women in China may be subjected to forced labor in an otherwise-legitimate business such as a karaoke bar or massage parlor. They may also be compelled to take part in the sex trade with customers on the side. This compulsion can be implicitly or explicitly required by a slaveholder in order to service the victim's debt. Hall 35
A relatively common example in China is hair salons. While there are obviously many legitimate hair salons in China, some salons semi-secretly offer prostitution in addition to haircuts, and a few serve exclusively as fronts for prostitution operations. One typical “salon cum brothel” was run by a Madame Liu in Jinghong, China, and was studied by Sandra Teresa Hyde.
The salon's erotic services mainly consisted of on-site hand-jobs, (locally euphemized as “hitting the airplane”), but also included off-site prostitution visits by Madame Liu's women (Hyde 2004,
79). It was unclear whether the women working at the salon/brothel were trafficked or voluntarily employed, but a general scenario like this one is not unheard of in China.
Olga Pochagina (2006, 121) describes the coercion and even physical force used by some
Chinese business owners to traffic their female employees sexually:
The owners of entertainment establishments, massage rooms, beauty salons, restaurants, and bars resort to various means in order to make the women working for them render sex services: economic, for example they do not pay them wages, but allow them only to keep the tips left by customers, while making them pay for the housing and food they are provided with, others merely create favorable conditions for finding customers, asking a certain fee for that service. Psychological pressure is applied on women, making it clear in every way that those who resist will be replaced with more acquiescent girls (there is definitely competition), and physical force is also applied, since owners know that their wards will not go and complain to the police.
Sex trafficking does not necessarily even have to involve in-person acts with clients.
Sexual services may be rendered through media, most notably the internet. Although a woman in a sex-related industry may never experience non-consensual intercourse or perform physical sex acts of any kind, if she is compelled to strip in front of a webcam, operate a phone sex hotline, act in a pornographic production, or perform any similar role, this is still a case of sex trafficking
(at least according to the US and international definitions of the crime). There have been some reports of crimes like these in the PRC, particularly in the internet sex industry (for instance, US
Department of State 2009, 227). Hall 36
Forced prostitution, trafficking of women and girls for marriage or future marriage, and trafficking in sex-related businesses are the main types of sex trafficking in China. They are not discrete categories, and in practice they often overlap with each other, and with labor trafficking as well. But how is progress to be made against so complex and clandestine a crime? Before meaningful solutions may be offered, consideration must first be given to the economics behind sex trafficking in order to better understand the problem at hand.
Part 3: The Economics of Sex Trafficking
In the months leading up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, concerns swirled that the sudden increase in the number of people, particularly males, traveling to Germany to watch the soccer match would create a sharp temporary rise in demand for prostitution in the area, which would be filled through both voluntary and involuntary prostitution. Early reports speculated that as many as 40,000 women and children might be brought in to service the 3.3 million soccer fans in attendance (Tavella 2007, 196). Although the German government and trafficking experts were quick to say that figure was somewhat alarmist and too high10, the incident represented one of the first major instances where the international community linked a surplus of males to a potential uptake in demand for sexual services—a demand which might be too large to satisfy without trafficking. Similar concerns have been raised about the Athens and
Vancouver Olympics, the upcoming London Olympics and South African World Cup, and,
10 Thankfully, it did turn out to be too high an estimate, thanks to proactive anti-trafficking work carried out by a variety of concerned groups. “Much of Germany's success in preventing trafficking from occurring during the event is likely attributable, at least in part, to the preventative measures taken by law enforcement and NGOs in the region and the fact that the planning for these measures began well before there was an international outcry demanding such action” (Tavella 2007, 215-216). Until the PRC enacts meaningful, effective preventative measures of its own to deal with its trafficking problems, trafficking will only continue to grow. Hall 37 ironically, even the recent Beijing Olympics11.
The Demand Side of Sex Trafficking12
With 40 million excess men, it is as though a dozen or more German World Cups will be happening continuously in China for at least the next few decades straight. It is very reasonable to guess that the demand for prostitution, bride trafficking, etc., will correspondingly flourish.
Why does the international community seem to be all but ignoring this potentially monstrous demand base for trafficked people?
Respected modern slavery expert Kevin Bales points out in his book Understanding
Global Slavery: A Reader, “criminal businesses tend to be opportunistic rather than developmental” (2005, 156). In other words, criminal enterprises, like all enterprises, are trying to generate profit, and they will do this in the simplest, most cost-effective, and most risk-free way possible. Rather than seeking to develop a demand for a black market good of which they have a supply, criminal businesses instead tend to capitalize on existing demand for criminal goods and services such as prostitution or drugs by providing a supply of those goods and services. Sex trafficking, like all criminal businesses, is demand-driven. “I was just trying to supply what the market needed,” recalls Chinese bride-trafficker Qian Guibao (Liao 2005, 103).
The fact that forced prostitution, trafficking for marriage, etc., are on the rise in China,
11 The Chinese government at least paid lip service to the idea of trying to keep sex tourists from attending the Beijing Games (Hillstrom 2008), but has refused to release any official data on sex trafficking during the event (Kloer 2010). It is fairly safe to assume that, as is the case with most major sporting events, there was at least some rise in both voluntary prostitution and sex trafficking during the Beijing Olympics, although the magnitude of this increase is anybody's guess. Although no data is available, one could argue the Games are still psychologically important, since they were one of the first times when China publicly connected the idea of excess men (in this case, sports fans) with increased demand for sex work. 12 While it may seem cold or unfeeling at first to talk about trafficked people as economic commodities for which there exists supply and demand, the grim truth is, this is undoubtedly the way traffickers think about their victims. It is useful, then, to “think like a trafficker” in order to better understand the economic calculations which lead to sex trafficking, and ultimately to create economic disincentives so that trafficking people becomes an increasingly unprofitable and undesirable business model for criminal groups. Hall 38 then, points to the fact that a demand for such sexual services is on the rise. If such a demand did not exist or if it were not so large, criminal organizations would have less incentive to enter the sex trafficking business and would seek profits in other businesses for which demand was greater, e.g., drug trafficking or arms trafficking.
The 40-million-some unmarried bachelors in China represent a demographic phenomenon unprecedented anywhere in human history. The men who are left unmarried in
China will be “poor, unemployed, and lacking education”: three strikes against a Chinese bachelor looking for love or sex (Tucker et. al., 2005, 541). Where will these men turn for sexual satisfaction? The contention of this thesis is that economic demand for sex trafficking of all sorts in China will continue to increase with the number of excess male unwed bachelors who are perceived as romantically undesirable.
Who are the buyers or “johns” of prostitution in contemporary China? There is no all- encompassing answer to the question, it seems. Some of the men who purchase prostitution services are married and looking for variety. Some are domestic and foreign businessmen traveling and looking for a good time. Some are married or unmarried migrant workers seeking sexual satisfaction. Some are men seeking an experience of power over another person
(Pochagina 2006, 118-119). However, the argument of this paper is that the economic demand for prostitution and sex trafficking will increasingly come from China's so-called “bare branches,” its 40 million surplus men.
The situation is not hopeless, however. The notion that criminal businesses seek to maximize profit like all businesses may actually in itself provide a promising avenue of inquiry toward change, since it suggests that an effective restructuring of economic incentives and Hall 39 disincentives would discourage criminal activity. “[I]f the attributes demanded by those who exploit trafficked people can be understood and countered, then demand might be lessened”
(Bales 2005, 165). In their book Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn describe a
Cambodian brothel they reported on for The New York Times, run by a woman called Sok Khorn.
The brothel prostituted adults and trafficked children alike. Upon returning a few years later to update readers on the situation, Kristof and WuDunn were surprised to discover that maintaining a brothel was becoming more and more difficult in Cambodia. Local law enforcement were driving up operating costs by demanding higher and higher bribes as Cambodia, under Western pressure, cracked down on sex trafficking. “Any cop in the neighborhood would drop by and demand $5. At that point, about half the brothels in [the city] folded. Sok Khorn announced in disgust that she would try something else as well. 'It wasn't making money, so I gave up and thought I'd open a little grocery shop,' she said” (Kristof and WuDunn 2009, 40)!
Kristof and WuDunn's anecdote is a dramatic example of how an effective system of economic incentives for legitimate work and strong economic disincentives for criminal business, e.g., higher bribe expenditures or certainty of jail time, reconfigure a potential trafficker's array of moneymaking options. China needs to drive up the economic cost of trafficking people, through a concerted and well-funded law enforcement thrust against traffickers, to render the business unprofitable.
The Supply Side of Sex Trafficking
As stated above, sex trafficking is a demand-driven business. However, it would not be possible if there were not also a ready supply of women to traffic. Though victims of trafficking in China come from a variety of regions and cultures, they typically share a handful of traits in Hall 40 common. First, they are typically in poverty, often extreme poverty, which limits their agency and life choices severely. Second, they are often ethnic minorities in their home country, putting them at higher risk of being denied access to services such as education and awareness of citizenship rights. Third, they are increasingly young. “Whereas in the past traffickers targetted
[sic] women in their 20s or 30s, they are now increasingly trafficking younger women and girls...some in their early teens” (Yunnan Province Women's Federation 2002, viii).
Let us turn now to an examination of three of the primary source regions for trafficked women: rural China, the Greater Mekong Subregion, and North Korea. Most women in China who comprise the economic supply for sex trafficking come from one of these regions.
Rural China
According to the US Department of State, “the majority of trafficking in the PRC occurs within the country's borders” (2009, 104). Rural areas often have SRBs far higher than the already-eye-popping national average of 117.52 boys per 100 girls, (Smith 2007, 11), with several rural provinces reporting staggering SRBs of 130:100 or higher (Smith 2007, 13). These drastic and worsening gender imbalances create an economic demand for women which traffickers capitalize on (Liao 2005, 103).
Rural areas serve as both source and destination regions for trafficked women—source regions because rural women tend to have less access to education and fewer employment opportunities and may be more susceptible to traffickers' fraudulent job offers, and destination regions because the dramatic gender imbalances typical in rural areas due to SRB imbalances and feminized rural-to-urban migration create demand for trafficked brides and prostitutes.
Yunnan Province, which shares a border with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma), is Hall 41 probably China's most notorious province for sex trafficking (Sheridan 2009; International
Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour 2008, 1). As women migrate from rural Yunnan to China's urban centers looking for work, the risk of trafficking is twofold. First, rural women, in their poverty13, are lured to urban areas with promises of legitimate employment often find themselves in sex trafficking situations instead. Second, as women leave rural Yunnan seeking employment in the urban areas, regardless of whether they are trafficked or not, their simple act of leaving exacerbates Yunnan's missing girls problem, which is already severe, and thus fuels demand for bride trafficking to Yunnan (Yunnan Province Women's Federation 2002, viii). The capital city of Kunming serves as a trafficking hub in and out of Yunnan.
The Sipsong Panna (Mandarin: Xishuangbanna) autonomous prefecture, formerly under the jurisdiction of Thailand, is now part of Yunnan Province. It is populated mainly by ethnic minority peoples related to the hill tribes of China, Myanmar (Burma), and Laos. The girls and women from these hill tribes are at increased risk of being trafficked, in part because they are under-served in terms of education and because many lack formal citizenship. They are victims of poverty: “poverty of opportunity” (Trading 2003).
Chinese women trafficked from rural to urban areas tend to be trafficked into prostitution or sex-related businesses like massage parlors. Women trafficked from rural areas to other rural areas tend to be trafficked into forced marriage instead; a problem more concentrated in rural areas.
The Greater Mekong Subregion
Although internal trafficking is China's biggest problem, cross-border sex trafficking is
13 Rural per capita income in Yunnan is a meager US$195, far below the World Bank's absolute poverty line (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour 2008, 1). Hall 42 also on the rise. Women are typically brought to China (via Yunnan Province) from Southeast
Asian countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion, most notably Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), and Laos (Trading 2003). Thailand and Cambodia are also centers of trafficking, but they tend to be destination countries more than source countries, even receiving some women trafficked from
China (US Department of State 2009, 279).
Even in the Burmese capital of Rangoon, not to mention the rest of the country, jobs are especially difficult to come by, increasing Burmese women's risk of trafficking to Yunnan and elsewhere (Trading 2003). Some Burmese women are brought into China via Yunnan to be trafficked as brides or prostitutes.
“Some trafficked victims from Viet Nam also end up in Yunnan” to work as prostitutes or to be sold as brides (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour 2008, 1). At particular risk in Vietnam are ethnic Hmong girls, who are often trafficked to China for forced marriage (US Department of State 2009, 104).
Trafficking along Laos' border with China is a growing threat, though it is reportedly less serious than human trafficking along the Vietnamese and Burmese borders (Ma 2009). Laotian women are usually trafficked into Yunnan through the county of Mengla, Yunnan's southernmost county, in Xishuangbanna Prefecture. Cultural similarities on both sides of the Lao-Chinese border, coupled with relative economic prosperity in China, have led to both migration and trafficking (Ma 2009). “Most victims are teenage girls from mountainous areas in northern Laos, who were lured by job or marriage opportunities at the other side of the border,” reports Chinese police officer Zhao Xianming (Ma 2009). Hall 43
North Korea
Another group that faces particular risk of being trafficked in the PRC is North Korean refugee14 women. By one estimate, “more than 100,000” North Koreans have illegally migrated to China for the chance of a better life, well over half of whom are women (Davis 2006, 131).
Upon arrival in China, they are faced with a language barrier and a dearth of opportunities for employment. To make matters worse, the PRC officially views North Korean defectors as
“economic migrants,” i.e., illegal immigrants, and thus unceremoniously deports any North
Korean found on PRC soil. Even if they are trafficked across the Korea-China border, (rather than willfully smuggled), they are still treated as illegal immigrants rather than victims of a human rights violation. Since the refugees know better than anyone that repatriation to North
Korea may well be a death sentence15, they are rightfully afraid of the Chinese police and thus have few resources to protect themselves from exploitation.
It is estimated that “more than 80-90 percent” of female North Korean refugees in China are victims of trafficking at some point; a clear indication of their extreme vulnerability as a result of the PRC's backward immigration law (Davis 2006, 131). Traffickers work inside and outside North Korea to steer women into forced marriages or forced prostitution16. Some are also forced to work in the internet sex industry; stripping for clients live via webcam (US Department of State 2009, 227). Traffickers within North Korea bribe border guards and government officials, and sometimes they also collaborate with organized crime syndicates (Davis 2006,
14 Although the PRC does not officially recognize North Korean defectors as “refugees,” the international community is mostly in agreement that they should be considered refugees under international law due to the unimaginably dire political and socio-economic situation in North Korea. The word “refugee” will be used in this paper to describe North Koreans in China, in agreement with the international community. 15 North Korea has no mercy for “defectors,” sending them to gulags if not just unceremoniously executing them. 16 As discussed above, forced marriage and forced prostitution are not always discrete categories, either—there have been a number of reports of forced marriages in which a husband has also pimped his North Korean wife out for forced prostitution and/or has allowed friends or relatives to use her as a prostitute. Hall 44
134). Conditions in North Korea are so desperate that some women even willingly agree to be sold into China while still in North Korea simply for the sake of survival (International Human
Rights League of Korea 1999, 3). As one Korean trafficking survivor observes, “it is better to find a man, any man, than to starve to death in North Korea” (Davis 2006, 133). Other women emigrate to China voluntarily on their own and are then willingly or unwillingly sold after getting to China safely (Davis 2006, 133).
Take Lee Chu Sim, for example. Lee Chu Sim is a former lieutenant in the North Korean
Army. When she defected from North Korea in 2007 and became a refugee in China, she was captured by a Chinese man in Shandong Province who threatened to turn her in to the police if she refused to be sold. Although “It is hard to imagine a situation so desperate that you would conclude being sold was your least worst option,” (Hilsum 2007, 37), Lee feared death upon repatriation to North Korea, so having no real choice, she agreed to be sold, along with her two children. She was sold to a Han Chinese man, and thus faced a language barrier. In order to prevent escape, her owner gave her only a thin layer of clothing and no shoes. There was also a large dog outside keeping watch. As if that wasn't enough, Lee reports that the Han Chinese people are so “well-cooperated” that if a woman escapes, the entire town goes out looking for her, and when she is found, she is returned to her owner and subjected to beatings. After more than a year of slavery, Lee managed to escape her plight with the help of a Chinese man and a
Korean missionary church. She traveled from Shandong to Qingdao to Mongolia and finally to safety in South Korea. She still does not know what happened to her children (“Lee” 2009). Hall 45
Part 4: Implications of Increased Trafficking in China
The PRC regime has a moral obligation to fight modern-day slavery. But if the moral imperative is not enough of an impetus in and of itself, non-traditional securitization concerns should also be compelling motives for action against trafficking, from the spread of sexually- transmitted infections (STI's) such as HIV/AIDS to the destabilizing effect of increased criminal activity in China to increasingly compromised border security.
HIV/AIDS and Other Sexually-transmitted Infections
If prostitution continues to spread in China, HIV/AIDS infection rates could accelerate considerably in the country, ultimately affecting the entire globe. Although 70% of HIV-positive people live in sub-Saharan Africa, many scholars contend that the future of HIV/AIDS depends on the rate of its spread in India and China, the world's two most heavily populated countries
(Tucker et. al., 2005, 539). An estimated 700,000 Chinese were HIV-positive as of 2007, (US
Central Intelligence Agency 2010), and that figure is growing—there were 50,000 new infections in 2007 alone (UN AIDS 2008). HIV in China first appeared among intravenous drug users in the early 1990's, but up until the mid-2000's, HIV in China was localized mostly within specific communities such as intravenous drug users and patients at infected blood banks (Cyranoski
2005, 425). Today, however, the virus increasingly spreads as a result of heterosexual sex
(Tucker et. al., 2005, 540). Infection rates of other STI's are also rising. To give one dramatic example, syphilis incidence increased twentyfold between 1990 and 1998 (ibid.).
Condom use is anything but widespread in Chinese prostitution: nearly half of all female sex workers (FSWs) never use a condom, and only 10% report always using condoms (Wang et. al., 2007, 746). “FSWs frequently lack the negotiating experience and social capital to refuse Hall 46 unprotected commercial sex17” (Tucker et. al., 2005, 544). Trafficked women in particular have even less agency in demanding that their clients use condoms than voluntary prostitutes “because they lack the power to insist on condom use, even if they are aware of the risk of [STIs] and
HIV/AIDS” (Wang et. al., 2007, 746). Thus, “client and brothel manager involvement in STI prevention especially important” and should be included in any educational campaigns undertaken (ibid.).
Yunnan alone accounts for up to a third of China's overall reported AIDS cases (ibid.).
The problem in Yunnan is not limited to HIV, either: a staggering 86% of FSWs in the capital city of Kunming have at least one STI (ibid.).
Figure 5 seems to show some correlation between higher SRBs (see Figure 1), (which, as discussed above, may result in increased demand for prostitution), and higher incidences of
HIV/AIDS. More research is needed to determine to what extent if any there is a causal relationship between the two, but the implication of the correlation is that HIV/AIDS tends to spread more rapidly in areas with more prostitution, especially when coupled with inconsistent condom use among FSWs.
HIV/AIDS, which for years was prevalent only among high-risk groups in China such as intravenous drug users, is increasingly moving to the general population through the “bridging effect” of prostitution. “Given the known (single, poor, unmarried) and anticipated (high risk
[sic] sex with FSWs, migration, low education) characteristics of surplus men, there may be a high risk of heterosexual HIV bridging between high and low risk populations” (Tucker et. al.,
2005, 543). Figure 6 illustrates the alarmingly rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in China, particularly within the last eight years or so. Perhaps the primary danger of increased prostitution in China is
17 See Choi and Holroyd, 2007. Hall 47
Figure 5: Geographic Distribution of Estimated 2007 HIV/AIDS Cases by Province (source: UN AIDS 2008)
Figure 6: Annual Reported HIV-positives and AIDS Cases in China, 1985-2007 (2007 data through October only) (source: UN AIDS 2008) Hall 48 that it has the potential to be the vehicle by which HIV/AIDS shifts from its former status as a disease affecting small high-risk minorities of the population to become a far more common infection throughout the cross section of Chinese citizens.
Another issue worthy of further study would be a potential connection between the male surplus and a possible increase in the incidence of (and maybe even tolerance for) homosexuality in the PRC (Yang 2005, 6; Hudson and den Boer 2004, 205-206). Little research has been done in this area, but one study suggests that Chinese men who have sex with men (MSM) are relatively sexually active compared to other populations, that their reported condom use is very low, and that HIV is spreading among them at an alarming rate as well (Zhang et. al., 2000,
1949-1950).
If China does not do more to combat the complex and interrelated problems of trafficking, prostitution, missing women, and STI's like HIV/AIDS, it is not hard to imagine that
“a concentrated HIV epidemic like China’s could turn into a generalized one based on a new bridging male population, the surplus men” (Tucker et. al., 2005, 543). That is why activists like
Dr. David Ho are encouraging the Chinese government to do more. Ho, who was named Time
Magazine's 1996 Person of the Year for his work in AIDS drug therapies, has established a program in Kunming, Yunnan, to provide care to HIV-positive people and to research an effective HIV vaccine. “Ho has traveled more than a dozen times to China over the past three years [2000-2003], setting up labs, visiting clinics, gathering blood samples, educating health workers and negotiating the intricately layered bureaucracy of the Chinese health establishment”
(Park 2003). His work paid off in 2003, when, on World AIDS Day, China launched its first-ever
AIDS public awareness campaign, including a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to AIDS patients in a Hall 49
Beijing hospital (ibid.).
Non-traditional Security and Destabilizing Effects of Increased Criminality
The spread of HIV/AIDS should not be China's only concern about the rise of sex trafficking, however. As trafficking and prostitution increase in China, other forms of criminality and social unrest could rise as well, destabilizing the PRC in various ways. For one thing, as human traffickers become increasingly adept at sneaking people into China, Chinese borders become more and more penetrable, representing a potentially major national security concern. As human trafficking increases, human smuggling of illegal migrants is also likely to increase.
“Interpol stresses that criminal networks, which smuggle and traffic in human beings for financial gain increasingly control the flow of migrants across borders” (Stencavage 2007, 21).
Human trafficking and migrant smuggling are executed together more and more by the same loose networks of criminal entrepreneurs. An uptake in human trafficking, therefore, may mean an uptake in human smuggling and general porousness of PRC borders. China shares borders with more countries than any other nation18—countries as far-flung (and potentially volatile) as
India, Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Afghanistan, and Russia. Clearly, China has an especially strong national interest in border security.
As criminal syndicates begin to coordinate their efforts more strategically, drug trafficking and human trafficking will also likely become less discrete categories. China is already a major thoroughfare for heroin trafficked from Southeast Asia's notorious opium- producing Golden Triangle region, (Curtis et. al., 2003), and coordination between drug traffickers and human traffickers is likely to increase in the coming years as groups begin to
18 China is tied with Russia for sharing borders with the highest number of countries—14 each. Hall 50 share information about border penetration strategies. It may also become more common for trafficking victims to be forced to traffic drugs during their transit. This would be another fruitful area for research.
A related securitization concern for the PRC is the potential overlap between human trafficking and terrorism. Generally speaking, higher rates of transnational organized crime correlate to higher rates of terrorist activity in a given state. The most obvious example is Al-
Qaeda, of course, which is funded in large part by the worldwide sale of opium poppies illegally grown in the fields of Afghanistan19. As the US war on terror around the globe wages on and terrorist organizations begin to feel squeezed, they become more likely to turn to organized crime to bankroll their operations, especially drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal sale of nuclear materials, and potentially human trafficking (Miller 2002, 13-15). Indeed, Chinese Muslim
Uighur separatists in Xinjiang Province, whom the Chinese government deems terrorists, are buying weapons with profits from drug sales (Miller 2002, 14). More research is needed to determine to what extent if any Uighur separatists (or other groups China sees as national security threats) might switch their trafficked cargo from drugs to humans, since humans are often more profitable and less risky to traffic than drugs.
Part 5: Policy Recommendations
Arguably the most important question of all is what should concerned parties (the
Chinese government, the US government, multilateral organizations, and NGOs) do to proactively work for a healthy future for China? How can the flow of trafficked people be shut
19 The intricate connections between many terror groups and their supporting drug trafficking operations have led to the telling neologism “narcoterrorism” (Miller 2002, 13). Hall 51 off, or at least reduced? This section will discuss possible productive actions for each of these groups.
The Chinese Government Addressing the “Front End”: Correcting the Sex Ratio Imbalance
Above all else, the first and most important step the Chinese government should take to prevent sex trafficking in the long term is to repeal the One Child Policy. The policy is arguably the single most significant driving force behind the missing girls phenomenon—although son preference is strong in China, it moves beyond discrimination and becomes literally lethal for female fetuses far more often when parents face the prospect of having no more than one child.
While the PRC regime is quick to point out that the One Child Policy has helped prevent the addition of another 300 to 400 million people to China's already-burgeoning population, a 60
Minutes special notes the implication hidden in this argument: “another population explosion is more dreaded than the girl shortage” of 40 million girls which the policy has also caused (Too
2006). As long as the policy is in place, China will be unable to address the root cause of demand for sex trafficking to the PRC (ibid.). If China can begin to grasp the seriousness of the policy and the breadth of its consequences20, constructive change toward gender equality will become an obvious imperative. Though public support in China for the policy remains remarkably strong
(nearly everyone in the country feels that China has too many people [BBC News Online
2009d]), hopefully public opinion will continue to shift as China becomes increasingly open to
20 The missing girls phenomenon is not the only serious demographic ramification of the One Child Policy. One other notable example: lower birth rates in China translate to an aging population overall, with less young workers supporting the elderly. Although the problem not as severe today as it is in, say, Japan, if current trends continue “by 2050 the country will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support each retired person, compared to 7.7 in 1975” (BBC News Online 2009d). This is leading some local governments to take action to increase birth rates—Shanghai, for example, has launched a leaflet campaign highlighting exceptions to the One Child Policy and urging couples made up of two only-children to have a second child themselves, which is allowed. This effort has been nicknamed the “Two Child Policy” (ibid.). Hall 52
Western ideas.
Critics might argue that the lower birth rates from the One Child Policy are a primary cause of China's rapid economic development, and thus to repeal the policy would slow development. But this argument is faulty because it assumes causality from correlation—because
China has lower birth rates, so the thinking goes, economic development happens there more quickly. However, about as many other scholars argue that the causality is actually reversed—as economic development occurs, lower birth rates are one result, since parents do not need as many children to help in agriculture and feel more assured that a higher percentage of their children will survive to adulthood as health care improves and child mortality rates fall. Lower birth rates and economic development are correlated, but it remains highly uncertain which causes which, and indeed, it is likely that each plays at least some causal role in the other. Thus, to say that repealing the One Child Policy would disrupt China's economic growth is an uncertain argument at best.
If the One Child Policy were repealed tomorrow, economic development would probably not be immediately impacted. Birth rates would likely not change much in China, at least not for a number of years. Cultural attitudes have shifted in China since the policy has been in place, so now, as mentioned above, most Chinese agree that the country has too many people, and in this community-oriented society, individuals feel a particular responsibility to the common good, which in this case translates to having small family sizes. Today, it is not the One Child Policy itself that is keeping birth rates down in China—it is the cultural attitude shift that has accompanied the policy over the last few decades. Repealing the policy, then, would not mean undoing this attitudinal shift. Thus, it would also not mean a drastic increase in fertility rates, but Hall 53 rather, merely a removal of the pressurizing factor which has driven up rates of sex selection: the mentality that couples have “just one chance” to have a prized son.
Going hand-in-hand with the policy's repeal, the PRC needs to proactively promote women's education and gender equality. The CCP's “Love Girls Campaign,” an advertisement campaign which encourages parents to value girls and boys equally, is one example (Missing
2006). The PRC government should produce more efforts like these, and, perhaps even more importantly, create more space for Chinese citizens to use their own creative capacity to build gender equality solutions by allowing a Chinese nonprofit and NGO sector to emerge (see below). As many modern development experts will attest, education and opportunities for women are one of the highest-return investments development workers can make (e.g., Todaro and Smith 2009, 384) and these efforts are almost always done best not by governments,
(especially those as formidably large and bureaucratic as China's), but rather, by NGOs and nonprofits, whose smaller size, stronger passion, and remarkable nimbleness and flexibility give them the tools they need to make real and lasting change (Kristof and WuDunn 2009).
Also, in the meantime, while it may seem strange at first to a Western observer, China should continue and expand initiatives like the one already implemented in a few rural areas of the country, in which the government directly provides cash to families with two daughters 21.
One pilot program gives rural parents of two girls a “retirement” package of about US$150 per year beginning after the parents are over 60 years old, essentially compensating them for the perceived economic burden that daughters represent. While this sum is not large by American standards, it about doubles a rural Chinese farmer's annual income—no small incentive (Too
21 Obviously, these are families who are exempt from the One Child Policy, e.g., ethnic minorities or rural agrarian families, as discussed above. Hall 54
2006). Another cash incentive program is even more generous, offering parents of two daughters an 80 square meter, 20,000-yuan house for free, plus a free tract of land to use for farming. Even still, knowing that he would receive these benefits, a documentary records a rural Chinese farmer describing his response to finding out his second child was another girl: “I was very sad, obviously” (Missing 2006). Although it will not change entrenched gender inequality overnight, restructuring the system of economic incentives can make a difference to reduce sex selection, especially in light of the fact that son preference is driven in large part by the economic benefits that come with bearing sons in Chinese patriarchal society.
One step that China definitely should not take is the well-intentioned but seriously misguided advice of Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer in their book Bare Branches. They suggest that the Chinese government should, among other things, “encourage the in-migration of women. Poor women from other countries, in particular, might view migration as an opportunity to marry up” (2004, 243). This suggestion borders on state-sanctioned bride trafficking, and although Hudson and den Boer contend that the initiative must be “strictly overseen and controlled by the government,” (244) it would be nearly impossible to implement such a policy without there being severe abuses of the system leading to more trafficking, particularly in a country with so little transparency and so much corruption as the PRC. While their hearts may be in the right place, Hudson and den Boer's suggestion is unworkable and dangerous.
The Chinese Government Addressing the “Back End”: Dealing with Sex Trafficking and
Prostitution
The aforementioned efforts will help to improve the status of women in China in the long term and will help begin to correct the missing girls problem. But dealing with the sex ratio Hall 55 imbalance on the “front end” is insufficient in that it does not directly address the current rise of sex trafficking and prostitution in China on the “back end.” Thus, the PRC must also fundamentally rethink its anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution strategies, taking into account the successes and failures of the policies of other nations.
Most Chinese citizens do not look favorably on prostitution, but unlike many countries, this has less to do with moral concerns and more to do with the perceived dirtiness and threat to the public order that prostitutes represent. “A large number of Chinese men think that visiting prostitutes is entirely acceptable moral behavior,” even if they might disapprove of prostitution as an institution (Pochagina 2006, 122). “What is more, they even consider the purchase of sex services to be a form of charity, since they are providing prostitutes with a chance to earn a living” (ibid.). This brand of moral rationalization is not unique to China; it is a common thought process in many countries and regions where sex trafficking is a problem, from Southeast Asia to the United States.
Without the underpinning of common morality against prostitution22, it is difficult to make headway against the problem. As anti-trafficking expert Kevin Bales notes, to combat demand for sex slavery, the first need is “to counter the moral economy that allows those who exploit trafficked people to rationalize this activity.” He goes on to point out that “Virtually every action that we now think of as a violation of human rights was once defined as acceptable,”
(2005, 165), and thus, what the anti-trafficking movement needs to do is raise broader awareness of modern slavery and approach the issue from a human rights and common morality framework as opposed to a criminal justice framework alone. This may be especially true in a more
22 Note the difference between a common morality against the prostitution as an institution, and the prevailing attitude in countries from China to the United States, which unfortunately could be better characterized as a common morality against prostitutes themselves. Hall 56 community-oriented culture such as that of China, where public attitudes and common understandings are even more influential than in Western culture. Such an approach would shift the culpability in the prostitution exchange primarily to the “johns” who purchase sex, rather than the women, who are reluctant at best to engage in prostitution, and trafficked at worst. This means more than empowering women—it also includes educating men, teaching them from a young age, for example, that soliciting prostitution is never acceptable.
The question of whether legalizing prostitution helps or hurts is a controversial one, even among feminist groups. Advocates of legalization argue that it gives sex workers access to health care and routine STI check-ups, enables them to insist on condom usage, and brings the trade out of the black market, resulting in better treatment of prostitutes by pimps and brothel managers.
For example, the proponents of legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands argued that legalization and regulation would help prevent sex trafficking of foreign migrants, fostering instead a supply of willing Dutch women to work as prostitutes. This turned out not to be the case when the
Netherlands did legalize prostitution: Janice Raymond (2003, 317) reported, “In the year since lifting the ban on brothels in the Netherlands, eight Dutch [trafficking] victim support organizations reported an increase in the number of victims of trafficking, and twelve victim support organizations reported that the number of victims from other countries has not diminished.” The apparent failure of the Dutch model of across-the-board legalization has led some anti-trafficking organizations that once favored universal legalization of prostitution to rethink their approaches.
But those who argue only for better enforcement of the status quo of traditional prostitution law do not have a terrific case, either, however. They convincingly argue that Hall 57 legalizing prostitution affirms the exploitation of women and actually increases demand for paid sexual services by removing the threat of punishment for johns, and they further insist that the only way to combat prostitution is to have harsh punishments and effective law enforcement. But although such law enforcement structures are largely the norm in the US and the UK, for example, sex trafficking continues to expand in America and Britain. It seems that relatively effective law enforcement alone is insufficient to stop human trafficking. Also, in many countries where prostitution is illegal, including China, women who are trafficked into prostitution may be arrested, imprisoned, prosecuted, and/or deported for engaging in prostitution, despite the fact that they were stripped of agency and involuntarily trafficked into the sex trade.
Total legalization and total criminalization of prostitution each have their flaws. Is there a third option? The contention of this author is that China should take a lesson from Sweden, whose innovative (though admittedly controversial) approach to prostitution policy has turned out to be relatively successful. Sweden leaves the purchase of sex illegal, but makes the sale of sex legal, effectively criminalizing the demand and not the supply, the john and not the prostitute
(Ekberg 2004, 1191). The argument is that the relationship between a prostitute and a john is marked by an inherently unequal power differential, and thus, by criminalizing only the purchase of sex, the law seeks to put power back into the hands of otherwise marginalized sex workers.
“The government [of Sweden] considers...that it is not reasonable to punish the person who sells a sexual service. In the majority of cases at least, this person is a weaker partner who is exploited by those who want only to satisfy their sexual drives” (Ekberg 2004, 1188). In China, with tens of millions of excess men, more than just about anywhere else in the world, demand is patently the problem. The PRC would be wise, therefore, to adopt an expressly demand-focused solution Hall 58 similar to Sweden's.
Law and Corruption in the PRC
In terms of prosecution and rule of law, China has taken some steps, enumerated by the
Yunnan Province Women's Federation (2002, vii):
Recognizing the gravity of the problem, the Chinese Government [sic] has built up a comprehensive framework of anti-trafficking laws and regulations, with severe penalties for traffickers and for purchasers of trafficked women and children. In addition, China has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 1989, the ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138), 1973, and the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), 2002. Despite all this, the problem continues to grow.
That said, according to the US Department of State, “China's domestic laws do not conform to international standards on trafficking23” (2009, 106). They do not recognize non- physical forms of coercion, for instance, citing only kidnapping as constituting a means of trafficking (ibid.). They also confuse trafficked people with smuggled migrants, most notably in the case of North Korean transnational trafficking victims. China should correct inconsistencies like this one in its laws, bringing them into agreement with international norms. Some progress is being made—in December 2009, the PRC finally ratified the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, a long overdue but positive step (US Department of State 2010). However, China still has no comprehensive domestic anti- trafficking law or definitive legal definition of trafficking, and that fact alone greatly reduces risk for traffickers operating in China. Traffickers can currently only be prosecuted under a piecemeal array of various laws against trafficking-related crimes such as prostitution, illegal immigration,
23 Note that the US government to some degree unilaterally declares its own definition of trafficking, enumerated in the State Department's TIP Report, to be the internationally-recognized one. However, it does not differ much from the true international standard, the United Nations' Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; which China just recently ratified in December 2009 (US Department of State 2010). Hall 59 forced marriage, child sexual exploitation, debt bondage, etc.24 If their crimes do not fit neatly into any of these categories, traffickers may escape with lighter sentences than they would if
China had a law that defined and dealt with human trafficking directly. China should use the UN
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children, as well as the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) as models to craft such a law.
With better laws must come better training of police to recognize potential victims of human trafficking. When a brothel raid happens, China currently has no systematic way of determining which prostitutes are working of their own volition and which are trafficked (US
Department of State 2010). Thus, rather than receiving victim services, women in sexual slavery are often subjected to legal punitive measures as if they were violating China's anti-prostitution laws willingly. Even for the women whom China recognizes as victims of trafficking, there still exists no legal alternative to deportation, which in some cases, e.g., North Korean women, may be a death sentence. Better and more widespread training on trafficking is greatly needed among
Chinese law enforcement personnel to more effectively identify trafficking situations, and China should create a program similar to the US T-visa program, which allows foreign certified victims of trafficking in the US to be granted a path to US citizenship rather than being repatriated if they so choose.
On a related note, prostitution in China, as in many developing countries, would not be nearly as widespread if not for a high level of law enforcement and government corruption. As
Schuckman reports (2006, 89):
24 For a comprehensive list of Chinese laws that deal with trafficking-related offenses in both English and Chinese, see UNIAP 2010b. Hall 60
Corrupt law enforcement officers and government officials are a barrier to combating prostitution and trafficking. Officials are bribed by pimps or brothel owners or offered perks when they themselves visit the brothel. These actions indicate the silent encouragement of prostitution and, intentionally or not, trafficking.
Action against corruption is one area where the PRC has shown some signs of forward motion in recent years. However, it remains the case that the words “transparency” and “China” rarely find themselves in the same sentence in the international policy dialogue, at least not in a positive light. Corruption remains a major problem in China, and until it is rooted out (or at least minimized) more effectively, prostitution will continue to flourish.
In addition to corruption, cultural factors may also be part of the explanation for China's relative inaction. “Prostitution is an embarrassment to the Communist Party, which touts its ability to eliminate social problems. Party officials often opt to just avoid the issue” (Schuckman
2006, 89). In a culture where for thousands of years “losing face” has been regarded as something to be steer clear of at all costs, government officials may see efforts to combat social problems as inherently troublesome, simply because they highlight the existence of social problems and thus the government's inability to do everything right. In China, where the undemocratic CCP regime is really only legitimized by its adeptness at promoting economic growth and general prosperity, social concerns may be seen as a threat to Party rule because they highlight government failure. It is difficult to know how to change or work around this deeply- rooted “saving face” mentality, but enacting democratic reforms in China would surely help somewhat, since voters could reward courageous leadership and initiative at the ballot box.
A final step China should take is to be more cooperative with international anti- trafficking efforts in general. Some examples of such positive cooperation would include: 1) allowing the UN High Commissioner on Refugees unfettered access to China to assess the plight Hall 61 of North Korean refugees in the country, 2) further increasing partnership with foreign governments in handling transnational trafficking cases, which has not been China's forte (US
Department of State 2009, 106), and 3) establishing effective victim services in China, e.g., building shelters for trafficking victims, and establishing humane and voluntary repatriation processes which are mindful of potential hardship if deported, particularly with regard to North
Korean trafficking victims.
Some signs of increased bilateral cooperation with countries have been observed, although minimal. For example, in 2009 China and Myanmar (Burma) signed a historic bilateral memorandum of understanding promising increased cooperation in anti-trafficking work
(UNIAP 2009). In April 2009, Chinese and Costa Rican officials collaborated to arrest traffickers involved in a scheme that trafficked Chinese citizens to Costa Rica for forced labor (US
Department of State 2010). And in January 2010, China also reaffirmed its pledge to fight trafficking through the multilateral COMMIT project with several Southeast Asian nations
(UNIAP 2010a). The Chinese government should proactively pursue similar bilateral and multilateral agreements with neighboring countries which constitute the supply side of much
PRC trafficking, and should work proactively with all governments of states with which China has trafficking issues.
The United States Government
Granted, there is only so much the US can (and probably should) do to counter the problem of human trafficking within the PRC. China, which is extremely touchy about its own sovereignty after Western powers carved up and dominated China economically during the so- called “Century of Humiliation” from the Opium Wars to founding of the PRC, very vocally Hall 62 resents US initiatives like the annual human rights report on China25 and the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which routinely lambast China. China sees Western criticisms like these as hypocritical invasions into its own domestic affairs, and it is increasingly abrasive toward them as it begins to flex its muscles as an up-and-coming global power.
Nevertheless, the State Department has almost certainly given China too much grace in assigning it a rating in the TIP Report26. China has been a Tier 2 Watch List country every year the report has been issued (except before that ranking existed—those years China consistently received a Tier 2 ranking [US Department of State 2009, 105]). As discussed above, China does
25 The congressionally-mandated US human rights report on China (and 190-some other nations) that comes out annually is always highly critical of the Chinese regime's repressiveness with regard to freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and so on (and not without grounds). But China's view on the matter is that its human rights record is a matter of its own sovereignty and that uninvited US interference is patronizing and insulting. After several editions of the US report, China decided to counter by creating its own annual report about human rights violations in the US, typically coming out within a day of the US report's release and using American newspapers as its primary sources. “The U.S. practice of throwing stones at others while living in a glass house is a testimony to the double standards and hypocrisy of the United States in dealing with human rights issues and has undermined its international image,” said the Chinese State Council's Information Office upon release of its 2009 report on US rights abuses (Fu and Wu 2009). As China's power and influence continue to grow in the coming decades, observers expect China's resentment of alleged invasions of sovereignty like the human rights report to become increasingly vocal and problematic for bilateral relations. The Chinese report is really more of a “social ills report” on the US than a human rights report in any Western sense of the phrase “human rights.” The report focuses mainly on societal issues like racism, sexism, inequality, violent crime, and ubiquity of firearms in America, in contrast to the US report on China, which routinely accuses the Chinese government of directly causing or participating in human rights violations, e.g., suppressing political dissidents, mistreating Tibetans and other minorities, limiting women's reproductive rights through the One Child Policy, etc. As for the TIP Report, the soon-to-be-released 2010 edition will be the first one in which the US evaluates its own anti-trafficking actions in addition to the actions of foreign powers. This is a small but psychologically important step toward undercutting the perception in China and elsewhere that the US criticizes other countries on a variety of issues without stopping first to look in the mirror. 26 The annual TIP Report assigns each country a rating or “tier” based on its level of compliance with the US domestic Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA, the basic US anti-trafficking legislation) and its governmental action against trafficking. From the first report in 2001 until the 2004 report, countries could be Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3; Tier 1 being compliant and proactive in fighting trafficking, Tier 2 being non-compliant but making strides toward compliance, and Tier 3 being non-compliant with the TVPA and making no significant efforts to change. Tier 3 countries may be subject to sanctions at the president's discretion. Beginning with the 2005 report, a fourth rating was created, called the Tier 2 Watch List. The criteria are the same as for Tier 2, but at least one of the following three must also be true: 1) the absolute number of victims of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing, 2) there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking from the report's previous year, and/or 3) the determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with the TVPA minimum standards is based on commitments by a country to take additional future steps over the next year (US Department of State 2009, 49). Hall 63 not comply with the US minimum standards of anti-trafficking summed up in the “three P's”: prevention of trafficking, prosecution of traffickers, and protection of victims, set forth in the US
Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, and from the years 2001 to 2009, at least, has made remarkably little measurable progress toward compliance. Thus, it seems highly suspicious that China has escaped the Tier 3 designation nine out of nine times without much real explanation.
A fair amount has been written about the political pressures that affect the tier assignments in the TIP Report27. Pakistan famously moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2 between the
2001 and 2002 TIP reports, although a comparison of the report's country narratives for Pakistan for those years shows essentially no significant differences. Many analysts have had little choice but to conclude the promotion was a result of nothing trafficking-related, but rather, was a carrot for Pakistan's support of the US war on terror as of September 2001. Similarly, India's 2007 escape from Tier 3 and inclusion on the Tier 2 Watch List was dubious at best—the country is regarded by many activists as the number-one worst country for trafficking in the world. India is notorious for both absolute numbers and severity of trafficking. After India had for years showed no major progress on the issue despite receiving consistent Tier 2 or Tier 2 Watch List ratings
(much like the PRC), in 2007 Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte contended that India was long overdue for a Tier 3 rank. However, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice “overruled him out of concern about alienating the Indian government” (Labott and Verjee 2007). These are just two examples of how US interests and political gamesmanship sometimes taint the veracity and objectivity of tier assignments.
Certainly, for a bilateral relationship with as much importance as the Sino-US one, other
27 See, for example, DeStefano 2009; a very helpful book. Hall 64
US interests are taken into consideration when assigning a tier to the PRC. US interests are increasingly contingent upon Chinese economic growth: China holds trillions in US foreign reserves and is America's number-one importer. Like India, then, it should not come as a surprise that the TIP Report's assessments of China's anti-trafficking actions are given through rose- colored glasses. However, to understand this is not to condone it. US honesty and impartiality in ranking countries is of paramount importance to American credibility in the international community with regard to anti-trafficking. If the TIP report rating system is reduced to a mere gauge of US goodwill toward a given country, then that completely undercuts the very reason the
TIP report exists in the first place: to help foster effective governmental anti-trafficking programs in countries around the world, and to impartially “name and shame,” censure and sanction those that show no initiative.
One tangible thing the United States can do to make a positive difference with regard to
China's trafficking woes, then, is to give the PRC a Tier 3 rating in the forthcoming 2010 TIP
Report (typically released each June), and follow through with some real economic sanctions against the PRC; of course not total embargoes or anything nearly so drastic, but measures with some actual economic impacts, however minor. Although sanctions may slow the US economy as well somewhat, in light of the countries' interconnectedness, a Tier 3 designation would send a strong message to China that this is an important issue in the Sino-US relationship—one that matters enough in America's eyes that they are willing to risk taking a bit of a hit themselves to truly ensure justice for all. The moment America as a nation puts its own economic interests before human rights, America is doing the very same thing as human traffickers themselves. As a nation, the US must insist unswervingly and doggedly that slavery in any form, in any place, of Hall 65 any people group, is fundamentally unacceptable, and must use its superpower status respectfully, impartially, and insistently to ensure that no person in any country is enslaved.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
In a number of countries around the world, there has been real, measurable progress against trafficking in the last decade, and in almost every success story, NGOs have played a critical role. Government action against trafficking is no doubt crucial, as noted above, but rather than entrusting anti-trafficking work to government bureaucrats alone, federal money is often more effectively spent through providing grants to passionate NGOs with a real heart to make a difference. NGOs tend to be small, nimble, streetwise, impassioned, and highly effective. They often understand the on-the-ground realities of trafficking far better than government agencies can ever hope to, which is why in the US and elsewhere they are often consulted about government policy creation, or even asked to directly craft policies themselves 28.
Take South Korea, for example. In the first-ever US TIP report in 2001, South Korea was ranked as a Tier 3 country. Just one year later, it jumped all the way to Tier 1. What happened?
Analysis has shown that grassroots women's organizations, working in coordination with government institutions, were central to South Korea's speedy success (Schuckman 2006, 85-86).
The Philippines provide another example. The law enforcement training and private investigation work of US-based NGO International Justice Mission in Cebu, Philippines, has been central to a
28 International Justice Mission, the Protection Project, Equality Now, the National Association of Evangelicals, and other American NGOs played a pivotal role in crafting the original US Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and its signature “three P's” approach (prosecution of traffickers, prevention of trafficking, and protection of victims) (Stoltz 2005, 414-415; Hertzke 2004, 318-320). NGOs continue to strongly influence US anti-trafficking policy even today—the Child Protection Compact Act (CPCA) passing through Congress now is another example of a largely NGO-driven anti-trafficking bill, endorsed by International Justice Mission, World Vision, the Polaris Project, Equality Now, the SOLD Project, Amnesty International USA, Sojourners, Freedom House, and the Not For Sale Campaign, among others (International Justice Mission 2010) Hall 66 dramatic 70% drop in the number of children trafficked into brothels in less than two years
(International Justice Mission 2009). These remarkable success stories of passionate and savvy
NGOs must not be ignored.
Unfortunately, “The [Chinese] government continues to obstruct the independent operation of NGOs and international organizations that provide assistance on trafficking issues”
(US Department of State 2009, 106). China's repressive regime is wary of any organization that could conceivably influence policy or could in any way question the status quo29. The crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989 is the most obvious and bloody proof, but persecution of house-church Christians, Falun Gong spiritual movement practitioners,
Tibetans, Uighurs, pro-democracy dissidents, and other groups are also well-known and continue to this day. In short, freedom of assembly is severely restricted in China, and the few NGOs that are allowed to operate at all are closely monitored and tightly constrained.
Further complicating the situation, as noted above, “Prostitution is an embarrassment to the Communist Party, which touts its ability to eliminate social problems” (Schuckman 2006,
89). The same is true for trafficking of all sorts. In the eyes of the Party, women's organizations working to combat trafficking are in some ways inherently threatening because the very need for their existence underscores the Party's inability to eradicate trafficking on its own, or at least its ineptitude at doing so. Pragmatically, then, Chinese NGOs must be deliberate about casting themselves in the public eye as organizations designed to assist the Party in realizing its anti- trafficking goals, rather than framing their existence as an attempt to compensate for deficiencies
29 The Communist regime is hanging on to power not through indoctrinating the Chinese population with obsolete Maoist ideology, nor through democratic reforms, but through an implicit social contract which has been dubbed the “Beijing consensus”—the PRC regime will continue to facilitate miraculous GDP growth and give the Chinese people unprecedented economic freedom if the Chinese people agree not to make political waves or question Party rule (Kristof and WuDunn 1994). Hall 67 in Party governance (regardless of whether or not this is actually the case).
In the years since Beijing hosted the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women,
Chinese grassroots women's organizations have been increasingly numerous and active (Liu
2005, 245; Schuckman 2006, 89). Their operations are still severely restricted, however. The All-
China Women's Federation (ACWF) provides an interesting case study. Originally established in
1949 by the CCP, the ACWF remained largely ineffectual and toothless until the 1995 Beijing conference. The conference brought China into contact with Western-style NGOs in many ways for the very first time, and gave the ACWF fresh inspiration and exposure to NGO methods and their often-remarkable effectiveness (Liu 2005, 246). Since 1995, the ACWF has become more
NGO-like, while still remaining in some ways under the auspices of the CCP. (The US State
Department [2009, 106] describes the ACWF as “a quasi-government entity.”) ACWF efforts today include running public awareness campaigns designed to prevent trafficking, conducting interventions to prevent prosecution of trafficking victims, and creating networks of communities that protect women's rights (US Department of State 2009, 107). Although the ACWF does more activism today than in previous decades, “strict regulation by the government continues to stifle the movement’s effectiveness and limit its ability to tackle controversial issues” like human trafficking (Schuckman 2006, 89).
In contrast to the originally-Party-initiated ACWF, an increasing number of Chinese
NGOs are self-initiated by everyday community members, reports Liu Bohong (2005, 247).
However, official recognition is extremely tedious to obtain—potential NGO founders must navigate a sea of convoluted and difficult rules and regulations. “For example, an [NGO] can only be licensed if its activities are not duplicated by another organization in the same region” in Hall 68 the eyes of the Party (Schuckman 2006, 90). The difficulty of creating and operating NGOs appears to be prohibitive in many cases: even Chinese state-run news reports that China has a mere 1.45 NGOs for every 10,000 Chinese; a lower proportion than comparable countries like
India or Brazil, and far lower than developed countries (Xinhua News Agency 2004). NGO expenditures as a percentage of GDP are telling, as well, representing just 0.46% in China, compared with more than 10% for the Netherlands and Israel and over 5% for the US and
Australia (ibid.).
Despite these difficulties, Chinese NGOs may represent the most critical single force in the fight against sex trafficking in the PRC. As long as the current regime is in place, unless the party line evolves to align more with international norms of anti-trafficking, it seems the government will not be much help. But NGOs have the potential to quietly work around governments and effectively channel resources into practical programs. Providing international assistance to Chinese NGOs is difficult at present, not least because receiving international monies may make such organizations more suspicious to the CCP. But as China continues to open to the international community, perhaps international cooperation will become more feasible.
Inter-governmental Organizations (IGOs)
Multilateral approaches to China's trafficking problem are a final vital component of a successful comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy. Several inter-governmental organizations
(IGOs) must play a more prominent role, most notably the UN, the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and even groups not working directly with
China, such as ASEAN and Australia's ARTIP, who can reduce transnational supply through Hall 69 localized efforts.
The United Nations is one of the key multilateral institutions which needs to step up even more against trafficking in China. The global efforts of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC), the UN Inter-agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), and the UN Global
Initiative to Fight Trafficking (UN GIFT) are encouraging, but still inadequate in the face of the world's fastest-growing transnational crime, and these groups also still tend to focus on countries other than the PRC (often concentrating instead on the best-established trafficking hubs such as
Thailand, India, and the former Soviet states). China's trafficking problems are already severe, but an even more drastic firestorm is coming in the next decades because of the sex ratio imbalance. Just like the PRC itself, UN anti-trafficking agencies need to take proactive steps starting today to prevent or ease the country's coming trafficking catastrophe.
With China's permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the UN is typically not the easiest organization to work through to promote controversial change in the PRC—China can often block or simply veto resolutions which it sees as violating its sovereignty or interfering with its domestic affairs. China's aforementioned stubborn refusal to grant the UN High
Commissioner on Refugees access to the PRC to assess the plight of North Korean defectors is just one example. But although difficult, multilateral approaches on other similar issues have proven to be somewhat helpful in the long run. While overnight change is probably impossible, drawing China into compliance with international anti-trafficking norms will come in large part through carrots and sticks at the international multilateral level.
Another key IGO which can help stop trafficking in China is the Asian Development
Bank. The ADB works, among other places, in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), Hall 70 promoting development and combatting human trafficking. The GMS consists of the countries along the Mekong River—Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Vietnam, and China
(specifically Yunnan Province). As discussed above, the GMS is a hotbed of human trafficking, with people flowing across the borders of all six of these states for sex trafficking in particular.
Yunnan province is one of the main entry points for foreigners trafficked into the PRC as well.
The ADB seeks to reduce supply of trafficked people in China, in the GMS, and throughout Asia through economic development and empowerment. In July 2004, the ADB began a 24-month
US$700,000 project designed “...to improve safety and economic benefit of mobility of poor and vulnerable people in the GMS, especially women and children...[and] to encourage subregional cooperation to promote safe migration and address trafficking issues in projects.” (Asian
Development Bank 2010). In addition to promoting subregional cooperation, the project instituted awareness-raising initiatives in the GMS and worked with the Mekong Tourism
Development Project to discourage trafficking. Finally, pilot programs were developed for future replication which investigated best practices for curbing trafficking, specifically with regard to tourism and improving cross-border infrastructure (ibid.). Today, the ADB continues to gain expertise and promote interagency cooperation and providing technical assistance among groups including the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT), the UN
Inter-agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), and the GMS Working Group on Human
Resource Development (WGHRD) (Asian Development Bank 2008, 2-3).
At present, however, the ADB's GMS projects tend to focus more attention on the
Southeast Asian states of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam than they give to the PRC. The ADB has an important role to play in raising awareness about trafficking as well as reducing supply Hall 71 through economic development. Using their experience elsewhere in the GMS, the ADB should pilot new initiatives in Yunnan in particular to pursue these broad goals.
Finally, although China is not a member, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) and the Australian government's Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons project (ARTIP) could be somewhat helpful in indirectly addressing China's trafficking problem by combatting trafficking in GMS countries who supply a portion of the women trafficked into China. As
Southeast Asian law enforcement personnel become better-equipped to recognize cross-border trafficking, less potential trafficking victims will be able to enter China through its southern borders. Similarly, as GMS nations continue to develop economically, the supply of desperately poor women in China's neighboring countries should continue to decrease, causing a drop in trafficking of these women to China and elsewhere.
As recently as last month, ASEAN showed some very positive initiative toward dealing with long-neglected human rights abuses among its members. Among its newly-announced efforts was a promise to set up an ASEAN body to address the rights of women and children.
“Activists say they expect the new commission to examine issues including human trafficking...and gender discrimination” (AFP News Agency 2010). While the group has traditionally avoided human rights issues and focused strictly on economic cooperation, it appears this may be starting to change.
Conclusion
As China's economic development miracle unfolds, sex trafficking, which some commentators (e.g., Addison 2008) have called “the dark side of globalization,” will continue to Hall 72 expand dramatically if left unchecked. China's increasingly severe female deficit, the result of the pressurizing constraint of the One Child Policy, represents an altogether unprecedented demographic black hole of demand for females which could have disastrous effects not only for the individual lives of hundreds of thousands of women and girls, but also for the PRC and all of
East Asia as non-traditional security issues from the spread of HIV/AIDS to increased criminality and corruption to PRC border securitization become more alarming. The most important long-term action any party can make is the Chinese government's repeal of the One
Child Policy. But while this change is paramount, other governments, NGOs, and IGOs all need to combat human trafficking in China much more intentionally and with greater financial commitment.
Even we, as individuals, can join in the modern-day abolition movement. The African slave trade was abolished in Britain in 1807 not because it was economically easy, politically expedient, or supported by an overwhelming majority of the populace. Rather, it was because a remarkably small group of concerned citizens, under the leadership of William Wilberforce, demanded with incredible persistence that human rights be respected regardless of the cost.
Every person can play a role in ending slavery for good, not only in China, but throughout the world. Hall 73
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