Victims’ Rights
By Mohamed Y. Mattar

China has a strong record of convictions in human-trafficking cases, but victims of forced labor and sexual exploitation need more protections.

Behind the economic rise, booming urban centers and brilliance of new wealth and modernity, important human rights issues blemish the wonders of today’s China. n Unease on issues of freedom of speech and political and religious expression is accompanied by alarming human rights matters—exploitation of construction labor, trafficking in persons and, increasingly, child-sex tourism. n The U.S. State Department and the United Nations are among those who say the problem of trafficking in persons in China is significant. The State Department finds that China is a source, transit and destination country for trafficking in men, women and children—often for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.

Especially significant is the problem of internal trafficking, which often involves the recruitment, transfer and exploitation of women from rural southern provinces such as Yunnan to urban areas of the country. Similarly, the United Nations reports China to be one of the world’s top 10 origin countries for sex trafficking.

Destination countries include regional neighbors Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, distant destinations such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States and unexpected locations such as Costa Rica. China also serves as a destination country for trafficking victims from countries in and outside the region, including Brazil, Myanmar, Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam. As ever-greater numbers of Chinese businessmen and male tourists arrive in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, NGOs monitoring trafficking and child-sex tourism note a steady increase in Chinese men seeking virgin girls in these countries.

Why China?
A number of factors contribute to China’s trafficking infrastructure. Established, organized criminal smuggling networks (known as “snakehead” gangs) are heavily involved in large-scale operations that smuggle migrants and traffic victims within, into and out of China. For example, organized crime plays a significant role in the trafficking of mainland Chinese women to Hong Kong, and trafficking gangs lure North Korean women into marrying Chinese men. Chinese agents linked or affiliated with Chinese organized crime, or “triads,” are reported to recruit Chinese victims for work in -Chinese-owned restaurants, clubs or fishing vessels in South Africa, where they are forced into prostitution. Ties between the yakuza (Japanese organized criminal groups) and criminal groups in countries of origin for migrants, including China, are well documented. Bribes to border guards and other forms of corruption also may play a role in trafficking.

Gender discrimination is also an important factor in the trafficking phenomenon. As a result of China’s one-child policy, unwanted female children are prone to abandonment and are vulnerable to trafficking. They may be sold to rural families who already have a son but want a daughter to help with housework; others are sold to be raised as child brides for farmers in remote regions. Addressing gender inequalities is especially important, given China’s rapid economic growth in recent years, which has not benefited men and women equally, especially in rural areas. Additionally, because of selective abortion of girls in China, poor farmers often have difficulty finding wives. These conditions all fuel trafficking in women from regional neighbors Vietnam and North Korea. At the same time, boys are kidnapped and sold to families seeking male heirs.

The collapse of the North Korean economy in the 1990s, coupled with agricultural disasters and social, economic and political policies, led to famine in that country beginning in 1994. Since then, an estimated 2 to 3 million people have died of starvation in North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of others have fled across the border to China, where they are vulnerable to criminal trafficking networks. The border area is a reported hub for trafficking gangs, which abduct or coerce women into prostitution, marriage or labor exploitation. The number of North Korean women crossing the border has increased in the past decade; some NGOs estimate that more than 50 percent of all North Korean women who cross the border become victims of trafficking. China arrests and expels North Koreans without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum, effectively leaving them with no protection and in fear of deportation—a situation consistently exploited by traffickers operating along the border.

As China grows as an origin country for child-sex tourism, it also appears to be a rising sex-tourism destination. Hotels are reported to openly procure women for guests. In 2003, a hotel employee and brothel keeper were sentenced to life imprisonment for procuring women for 200 Japanese businessmen.

U.S. State Department Ranking
The Chinese government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking in persons as established by the U.S. government. In 2000, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which criminalized trafficking in persons, provided for comprehensive protections to victims of trafficking, called for prevention of the crime and required the secretary of State to report annually on foreign government responses to severe forms of trafficking in persons, which include, inter alia, trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and labor.

The report’s evaluation of government actions against trafficking is based on the TVPA’s minimum standards, which include the prohibition and punishment of trafficking in persons commensurate with that of serious crimes and sufficiently stringent to deter future offenses, as well as “serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.” In determining the extent of government action, the act requires the secretary of State to evaluate a government’s record in the areas of prosecution of the crime of trafficking, protection of victims of trafficking and prevention of trafficking.

Each annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report categorizes the countries by compliance. Countries placed on Tier 1 are determined to be in full compliance with the minimum standards eliminating trafficking in persons; countries on Tier 2 are determined not to be in full compliance with the minimum standards, but to be making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance; and countries placed on Tier 3 are determined not to be in compliance and not to be making significant efforts to do so. Countries placed on Tier 3 may face nonhumanitarian sanctions. Beginning in 2004, following the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, a Tier 2 Watch List was created to allow countries likely to be moved down to Tier 3 the opportunity to undergo an interim assessment and avoid being placed on the lower tier. 

China has been included in each TIP Report since its first publication in 2001. The State Department consistently has found that, although China is not in full compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons, it is making significant
efforts to move into compliance. -However, while China was placed on Tier 2 during 2001–04, the report moved the nation down to the Tier 2 Watch List for 2005 and 2006, citing a lack of improvements in victim protection in transnational trafficking. At the same time, China received praise for its efforts to prosecute traffickers. Prevention initiatives, such as joint public awareness activities with countries of origin for trafficking to China, were likewise highlighted.

A Strong Conviction Record
China’s legal framework allows for successful investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases, and trafficking is an explicitly prohibited offense under the Chinese criminal code. However, the definition of trafficking under Chinese law is not in conformity with the internationally recognized definition of trafficking under the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (U.N. Protocol), and China is still not a party to that protocol. An important criticism is that the Chinese law does not address all forms of trafficking, especially trafficking for the purpose of labor. The law also does not specifically define the elements of the crime of trafficking.

Nevertheless, the punishments for trafficking as defined under the Chinese law are strict and under aggravating circumstances may even invoke the death penalty. Under the Chinese criminal code, anyone who abducts or traffics women or children is subject to imprisonment for five to 10 years and a fine. Punishment is enhanced to imprisonment for 10 years to life, plus a fine, under certain aggravated circumstances. The code further states that “abducting and trafficking women or children refers to abducting, kidnapping, buying, selling, transporting or transshipping women or children.”

Correspondingly, China has a strong record of investigations and convictions of traffickers. For example, in September 2002, China executed a man convicted of abducting and selling more than 100 women in one of the country’s largest-to-date female-trafficking operations. The trafficker, a farmer from Guangxi, worked with his wife and friends to sell women from the provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Yunnan for 1,000 yuan (US$120) to 3,000 yuan (US$360). The women were usually sold to poor farmers who could not find wives.

In January 2003, five Chinese men were convicted for trafficking women and children along the border with Vietnam. One man received a life sentence, while the other four were sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. Numerous other arrests and prosecutions have taken place, with 3,144 traffickers referred for prosecution in the reporting period for 2005, according to the TIP Report for that year. Looking through the Department of State’s TIP country reports on China for 2000–06, it is clear that China’s record in combating trafficking is strongest in the area of prosecution.

Importantly, China has also begun working with other countries in the region to harmonize repatriation procedures for victims of trafficking. Such an agreement was reached with Thailand in 2003 and a similar one signed with Vietnam in 2004. China also has taken part in a number of multilateral initiatives against trafficking and related crimes under the umbrella of various regional frameworks, such as the U.N. Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion (UNIAP), established in 2004.

China’s record of arrests and prosecutions indicates that a substantial number of victims have been rescued. The country’s record on victim protection—although expanding in recent years—remains limited, however, especially regarding foreign victims of trafficking. Indeed, the State Department has lowered China’s ranking in two consecutive Trafficking in Persons Reports, for 2005 and 2006, citing lack of effort in combating transnational trafficking and providing adequate protection to victims of this form of trafficking.

One shortcoming of current protection policy appears to be the lack of a formalized, comprehensive and sustainable approach. Although the government has increased protection efforts, they continue to be largely ad hoc and, according to the 2006 TIP Report, the All China Women’s Federation (the main actor in victim protection) has no formal mandate to fulfill this role. Additionally, the State Department points out that anti-trafficking work has focused on combating sex trafficking, while labor trafficking has not received the same attention from authorities.

Protecting the Victims
China’s efforts to prosecute traffickers are commendable, and the government has demonstrated commitment to tackling the problem. But the lack of protective services available, especially to victims of transnational trafficking and involuntary deportations of North Koreans, indicates that China needs to make a greater effort to refocus its antitrafficking initiatives from a crime-control approach to a more victim-centered approach.

An important critical step would be ratifying the U.N. Protocol and bringing domestic legislation in harmony with its provisions—especially in relation to enacting a comprehensive definition of trafficking, which covers all forms of trafficking of concern in China.

Greater protections also must be afforded North Korean citizens, especially women and children, fleeing across the border into China to protect them from vulnerability to exploitation by traffickers.

Perhaps the National Action Plan, being elaborated throughout 2006, will provide the opportunity to consider these shortcomings and work out mechanisms to overcome them by effectively building on promising existing initiatives.