TRAFFICKING ABROAD
Roughly 600,000 Chinese citizens, mostly males, leave China annually to work abroad. This number does not include persons who have left the country without documentation. Another population that is believed to migrate at an increasing rate is young Chinese women between the ages of 17 and 25. Experts believe that the majority of Chinese migrant workers move through unregulated channels (UNIAP, 2008). Doing so makes them vulnerable to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Men, women, and children of China are trafficked to other parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Some are baited by legitimate employment but face forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation upon arrival. Others pay large transportation fees, face debt bondage, and are forced to pay off the debts via forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation (U.S. Department of State, 2009).
In a story that narrowly follows the formulaic pattern of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, three Chinese nationals, James Xu Jin, San Shan Ying, and Chou Xiu Ying, were found guilty of trafficking by a Ghanaian court in 2009. Under the guise of legitimate restaurant employment, the traffickers lured 10 Chinese girls to Ghana, 3 of whom were still missing when the traffickers were convicted. Upon arrival the traffickers confiscated the passports and travel documents of the girls and forced them to prostitute. The traffickers charged clients $70 per night or $40 per hour. The girls received none of the proceeds, as they were informed that they had to work off a $6,000 debt that included their travel and airfare costs (GhanaWeb, 2009). Trafficker James Xu Jin convinced his neighbors, the parents of an 18-year-old girl, to allow him to take their daughter to Ghana to work in a restaurant. He assured them that she would be safe. Instead she was sent to casinos and forced to prostitute. When she refused to have sex, Jin severely beat her and charged her a fine of $50 per day. “I had no choice but to do as I was told because I could not raise that amount,” the girl told the court (GhanaWeb, 2009). The traffickers also ran a brothel out of a home whose front room was designed to mimic the appearance of a restaurant and two separate rooms in the back were utilized for sex. Despite the traffickers’ insistence that the girls went to the restaurant to sing, the court noted that it was during singing that the clients selected the girl they would purchase for sex (GhanaWeb, 2009).
WHAT HAPPENS TO VICTIMS AFTER TRAFFICKING
Whereas trafficking victims were formerly viewed as criminals because of their immigration status, some experts believe that there has been a shift in general perceptions and sympathies concerning trafficking victims because the focus has shifted to child protection. Still, not all child-trafficking victims are acknowledged. For instance, although boys are trafficked for sex, they are not recognized under the anti-trafficking law as victims. Li Ping, director of communications for Save the Children, asserts that all victims of trafficking need to be acknowledged and protected in order to reduce trafficking (Guihua, 2009). Instead victims continue to face arrest and sentencing for acts associated with their trafficking experience. For instance, foreign victims of forced commercial sexual exploitation often face arrest for prostitution and are later penalized for immigration violations. One example concerns 200 women smuggled into China under the false pretense of employment, sold, and then forced to marry Chinese men. In 2008 the women were arrested and put in jail for immigration violations. Some of the women were sent back to Myanmar (Burma); others faced three-month prison sentences in China for violating immigration laws (U.S. Department of State, 2009). Experts hold that victims continue to be punished for crimes associated with their trafficking experience because of police corruption and also a lack of an efficient procedural system to identify victims.
There is an inadequate number of shelters in China, and most that exist are temporary, not specifically geared to trafficking victims, and provide few to no services for repatriated persons. On account of China’s legal definition of trafficking, male and adult victims of labor trafficking are not recognized and thereby have no access to services (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). Rehabilitation centers exist in both Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces. Victims are supposed to be given counseling before being sent back to their nation of origin (Guihua, 2009). Yet repatriation often occurs without any rehabilitation services. This is particularly true of North Korean trafficking victims, who commonly face punishment upon return for unlawful acts that occurred as a result of their trafficking experience. In China there is no legal alternative to deportation for victims who face hardship or retribution if returned to their nation of origin (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). Thus when Chun-ae and her daughter were eventually caught by police in China and sent back to North Korea, they were imprisoned in a gulag. Chun-ae and her daughter managed to escape, and they now live in Seoul, South Korea, with Chun-ae’s eldest daughter and son (Spencer, 2005). Women who have children as a result of their “marriages” to Chinese nationals are often targeted and face additional abuse in the gulags. Those who are pregnant as a result of their buyer marriage sometimes undergo forced abortions or their infants are killed at birth. Other infants face abuse at the hands of North Korean gulag guards. For example, Chun-ae witnessed North Korean gulag guards beat one baby on the head. The guards said: “Why should we feed Chinese seed when we have nothing to eat?” (Spencer, 2005).
One positive effort is the collaboration between China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on an IOM-funded training module to help in the identification, protection, and reintegration of foreign trafficking victims. Another group that aids victims and provides them with rehabilitation and legal counseling through their provincial offices is the All-China Women’s Federation (U.S. Department of State, 2009). However, internal trafficking victims have minimal to no access to social services. Of 167 children rescued from factories near Dongguan, none received protection or rehabilitation. Furthermore, not one of the victims discovered in Ghana has received any assistance from the Chinese government (U.S. Department of State, 2009). In the case of forced laborer Chenggong, the Hongdong government gave him a letter of apology and compensation of $732. He stated that the condolence money and letter simply did not make up for his experience. “The torture that we suffered and the amount of labor that we performed [are] worth more than 5,000 yuan,” Chenggong said (Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, 2007).
WHAT HAPPENS TO TRAFFICKERS
The Ministry of Public Security reported that it investigated 2,566 potential trafficking cases in 2008. In 2009 the ministry obtained 2,413 convictions against traffickers. In evaluating this number it is important to recognize that the government conflates human trafficking and smuggling, making it difficult to discern which cases involve trafficking versus smuggling or both (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). Smuggled persons can become trafficking victims, but the act of smuggling itself does not automatically make them victims of human trafficking. What is true is that smuggled persons are often in a position of vulnerability that can put them at risk for a range of exploitation, including human trafficking. The most recent trafficking data not only conflates human trafficking and smuggling but also conflates human trafficking and abduction and illegal adoption offenses, making it even more challenging to determine the nation’s exact anti-trafficking efforts (U.S. Department of State, 2012).
Investigation, enforcement, and prosecution of traffickers are sporadic and inconsistent at best. Once traffickers are found guilty, penalties vary depending on involvement and the number of trafficking offenses, among other factors. Some traffickers face four or five years’ imprisonment while others face death. In one case, five men were found guilty in January 2010 of abducting and selling three children. The man deemed to be the principal criminal, Xiao Yuande, faces life in prison. The four remaining traffickers face prison sentences of 6 to 13 years and also must collectively pay a fine of $11,765 (Xinhua News Agency, 2010b). Another case involved the trafficking of 88 women and one 11-year-old. The traffickers promised the victims factory jobs where they were to package tea and sunflower seeds. Instead, traffickers took the workers to a sham factory where they pretended to be managers and workers of the factory in order to keep the illusion of legitimacy. Soon after arrival at the fake factory, the traffickers sent the victims to other provinces supposedly to purchase raw materials, but instead the women were sold as wives. The ringleader, He Kaixun, was sentenced to death while two other members, Luo Qin and Wang Yongqing, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, a period during which, if they show genuine regret for their crimes, the sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment. Other members of the trafficking ring face two years’ to life imprisonment (People’s Daily, 2008).
INTERNAL EFFORTS TO DECREASE TRAFFICKING
A national action plan in China has been implemented and aims to help rescue and resettle women and children who have been abducted and trafficked.
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The plan emphasizes that killing or abandoning baby girls will be severely punished (Beijing Review, 2009). It is unknown whether this aspect of the plan has been enforced. The 2012 national plan of action for anti-trafficking efforts was to be released in December 2012 (U.S. Department of State, 2012). Also, to help identify victims who may have been too young at the point of trafficking to identify their true names and origins, the MPS launched a DNA database for missing children in May 2009. This tool will allow 43 cross-national laboratories to compare and share DNA data and could be invaluable in the nation’s anti-trafficking efforts (Guihua, 2009). Public Security Vice-Minister Zhang Xinfeng has called on all police to try to obtain more information from the public in missing persons cases. To aid in investigations, blood samples are supposed to be routinely collected from parents of confirmed missing children, rescued children, homeless children, and children of unknown origins who may have been trafficked (RFA, 2010).
Aside from the humanitarian motivation, the government has a strong incentive to stop organized crime, including that related to human trafficking. Farrer said, “Organized crime has been linked with groups that are a threat to the state. The government sees all of those who organize separately from the state as a similar type of threat. This includes so-called cults or unofficial religious movements, underground political movements, and organized crime.” Yet one of the government’s obstacles may involve their own officials and police. Prostitution is illegal, and the government is reluctant to make it permissible. Of course the contradiction is that China has a substantial sex industry of saunas, massage parlors, barber shops, and karaoke bars that would not be able to exist without strong connections with police and, in some areas, a robust relationship with organized crime groups. According to Farrer, women in the commercial sex industry are sometimes abused or harassed by police and organized crime groups, depending on the locality. “The police know what these places are and what they are doing. Of course, as one police officer told me, ‘We know what they are doing, but with the way that they are organized you can’t easily catch them in the act.’”
When crimes do occur, citizens may be wary of seeking help from the police because of the general perception that the police are not trustworthy. According to Farrer, “Whether police are in collusion with the crime, turn a blind eye, or are simply not concerned with these issues—the citizens and police are not at all on the same page. Also, there are not enough police. China is an underpoliced society, so there are not enough people to solve crimes.”
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In December 2009 the government ratified the 2000 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol in order to harmonize China’s anti-trafficking standards and definitions with those of the international community (Jia, 2010). The protocol obligates China to prohibit all forms of trafficking and to bring its domestic laws into conformity with international standards within 24 months (U.S. Department of State, 2010). “We’ve been faced with more organized and more professional cross-border human trafficking crimes in recent years,” Vice–Foreign Minister Li Jinzhang told
China Daily
. “So it is necessary to strengthen international cooperation to fight the crime” (Jia, 2010). If realized, the protocol would be implemented on the Chinese mainland and the Macao Special Administrative Region, but not in Hong Kong (Jia, 2010). As of 2012 no comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation had been enacted in line with the protocol (U.S. Department of State, 2012). International collaborative efforts have already helped the MPS identify over 44,507 cases of trafficking involving women and children between 2000 and 2007. Approximately 133,000 victims were rescued during that time, and more than 6,000 victims (women and children) were identified from April through October 2009 (Jia, 2010). In order to increase the efficiency and coordination of anti-trafficking efforts, in 2004 Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Against Trafficking in Persons in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Guihua, 2009).
As the most populous nation in the world, it is not surprising that China is presented with an immense human-trafficking challenge. The lack of a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, minimal enforcement, corruption among officials, and abuse of its own programs compound an already significant problem. The nation’s anti-trafficking efforts are seriously inadequate in the areas of victim identification, shelters, counseling, medical aid, reintegration, protection, and other forms of rehabilitative assistance. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that not all acts and means of trafficking are criminalized, so that many victims are left without recourse and their traffickers go unpunished. Still, the nation took a significant and positive step in ratifying the 2000 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol. This step compels China to adopt a clear and comprehensive definition of human trafficking in its criminal law. It will put pressure on China to create a law that protects male and female victims equally and prohibits all acts of trafficking, such as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, whether for forced sex or forced labor. If properly implemented, it will result in the much-needed inclusion of all means of trafficking, such as physical or psychological coercion, including debt bondage, though thus far no legislation has been enacted to bring the nation’s laws in line with the protocol. The amendment of Article 244 of the Criminal Code to increase the prescribed penalty and to broaden culpability to include those who recruit, transport, or assist in forcing others to labor is a significant first step, but many more need to be taken.