Women sold as brides in China

– Thousands of women and girls from northern Myanmar are being trafficked to China and forced to marry, a study said yesterday.

China has about 33 million fewer women than men due to the decades-long one-child policy. To plug the gap, tens of thousands of poor women from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are sold as brides each year, some going willingly, while others are tricked or trafficked.

In the first research of its kind, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated 7 500 women from war-torn Kachin and northern Shan states have fallen victim to forced marriage in China. – AFP