Burma, an eccentric military dictatorship ruled by golf-playing, Buddhist-worshipping generals, is now the main source of forced brides in China. David Eimer hears their story.
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The ancient temple city of Pagan Bagan in Burma Photo: ALAMY
Aba was just 12-years-old when she left her hometown of Muse in Burma to visit Yunnan Province in China's far southwest. When she crossed the border, she was expecting to spend only a few hours away from home.
But it would be three long years before Aba saw her family again. Like thousands of other young girls and women from Burma, she had been duped into coming to China so she could be sold into a forced marriage to one of the growing number of Chinese men who – because there are not enough girl babies born in China – cannot find wives any other way.
During her time in China, Aba endured routine beatings, while never being able to communicate with her family or even go outside on her own. Above all, she lived with the knowledge that she was destined to be married to the son of the family that had bought her – as if she was one of the pigs or chickens that ran around their farm.
"I was sold for 20,000 Yuan (£1,880)," said Aba. "I was too young to get married when they bought me. It was later that they told me I had to get married to their son. I was lucky in a way. If I had been two or three years older when I was taken, I'd be married to him now."
Most people wouldn't consider it fortunate to be kidnapped as a child and sold into virtual slavery. But Aba is one of the lucky ones. Not only did she escape a forced marriage, but she was rescued and was able to return home.
For most of the women from Burma who are sold as unwilling brides in China, there are no happy endings. Instead, they face at best lives of misery and drudgery. At worst, they are driven to suicide.No one knows how many thousands of women are trafficked into China each year to be the wives of the men known as guang gun, or bare branches, the bachelors in rural areas who cannot find brides by conventional means. What is certain is that it is a number increasing all the time. Thirty years of China's one-child policy has combined with the traditional Chinese preference for male children to create a devastating gender imbalance.
It is estimated that 120 boys are now born in China for every 100 girls. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, that means by 2020 some 24 million men will be unable to find wives.
"The one-child policy has had a considerable impact. Where you have a demographic imbalance, you have a situation where women are in demand. Sometimes, that demand is met through legitimate marriage brokers. Other times it is met by non-legitimate means," said David Feingold, the International Coordinator for HIV/Aids and Trafficking in Unesco's Bangkok office, and the writer and director of the 2003 documentary Trading Women.
Burma, an eccentric military dictatorship ruled by golf-playing, Buddhist-worshipping generals, is now the main source of forced brides in China.
Not only is it one of the most repressive countries in the world, but desperate poverty and frequent food shortages make it very easy for the traffickers to trick women into leaving for China and jobs that will never materialise. Instead, the women are sold as wives.
"The majority of women being trafficked from Burma into China end up as forced brides or in marriages where there's exploitation," said Mr Feingold.
Prices for the women range from 6,000 to 40,000 Yuan (£560-£3750), depending on their age and appearance. According to the Kachin Women's Association of Thailand (Kwat), a Thai-based NGO that helps trafficked Burmese women, around 25 per cent of the women sold in China are under 18. "The men always want healthy, young women who can produce babies. The women are really just regarded as baby-making machines," said Julia Marip, the head of Kwat's anti-trafficking programme in Yunnan Province.
Once Aba arrived in Ruili, a scruffy border town in Yunnan that is the main transit point for trafficked women from Burma, she was sold to a family who owned a cotton farm in the northeast of China. Now almost 16 and pretty with a shy smile, Aba is one of three children of a casual labourer and an unemployed mother.
At first glance, she looks like a normal teenager in her jeans and white T-shirt. It is only when she speaks in a quiet voice that it becomes clear what a horrific experience she endured, and how she remains deeply traumatised by it. "I still don't like going out on my own, especially in the evening," she said.
Thankfully, Aba escaped being paraded in public in front of potential buyers, which is the fate of many trafficked women. It is a brutal and dehumanising experience.
"Sometimes they'll be sold in markets that are held in parks. The traffickers will put the women in nice dresses and make-up. It's very cruel, because the women are happy to be wearing nice clothes, which they've never had before, and then they are sold like vegetables," said Miss Marip.
Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine the terror Aba must have felt, thousands of miles away from home with strangers who treated her as a possession they could abuse.
"I couldn't speak Chinese at first, so I couldn't understand what chores I had to do, so I would make mistakes. Then the mother would beat and slap me," said Aba. "I was afraid a lot of the time and very lonely because I had no friends to talk to. I cried a lot. In the beginning, they told me gently to stop crying. Later on, they would shout at me when I cried."
Escaping was not an option; she had no money and no idea where she was in China, while the family made sure she couldn't slip away. "They watched me all the time. I wasn't allowed to go out on my own."
One day, she discovered why she was being guarded so closely. She was told that she was to be married to the 20 year-old son of the family. "I had no idea that was why they had taken me until then. I refused but they told me I had to marry him," said Aba.
Virtually all women sold as forced brides find themselves trapped in what is essentially a marital prison. "Most trafficked women don't escape. We can't help them," said Miss Marip.
Faced with the hopelessness of their situations, some choose to end their lives by swallowing the fatal chemical pesticides used on farms, the most common way to commit suicide in the Chinese countryside.
But Aba did avoid a forced marriage. During a routine identity card check in her area, the police discovered that she was a foreigner and she was taken away, just weeks before she was due to be wed.
"I explained what had happened to me and the police went to see the family. They told them, 'You can't buy people, they're not animals'.
They asked me if I wanted to prosecute them but I said, 'no'. I just wanted to forget it and go home," said Aba.
Three years after she had disappeared from her parents' lives, Aba walked alone across the Chinese/Burmese border and returned to her home. "My parents were very shocked to see me. They started crying and so did I. I was so happy to see them," said Aba. Her mother and father had tried to find their daughter. "They went to the Muse police and told them I had been kidnapped and taken to China. But the police asked for 6,000 Yuan (£560) to investigate and my parents couldn't afford to pay," said Aba.
According to Kwat, that is the standard response of the Burmese authorities to cases of trafficked women. On the other side of the border, the Chinese police devote more energy to combating the domestic trafficking of children than they do to investigating the gangs who bring in women from overseas.
Until last year, the tiny minority of trafficked women who do escape were treated as illegal immigrants and imprisoned until they could be repatriated.
For Unesco's David Feingold, there is only so much the authorities can do anyway. "The idea that police enforcement can stop trafficking is ludicrous. The US hasn't been able to do it and they have almost unlimited resources. You have to address the underlying economic and social issues that prompt migration across borders," he said.
Aba knows as well as anyone what they are. Four months ago, the high unemployment in Burma saw her return to Ruili illegally in search of a job.
Now, she earns 650 Yuan (£60) a month working as a waitress in a restaurant.
Her time as a trafficked teenager has left her speaking fluent Mandarin, which enables her to blend in with the locals. Learning Chinese, though, is scant compensation for the three years of her life that was stolen from her.
"I still hate the family for what they did to me," said Aba. "I think I always will."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/8739403/Burmas-women-forced-to-be-Chinese-brides.html
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