100 Vietnamese brides 'flee Chinese husbands' after wedding
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 11 December, 2014, 3:39pm
UPDATED : Friday, 12 December, 2014, 4:58am
Agence France-Presse
More than 100 Vietnamese brides have disappeared shortly atfer marrying Chinese men in the poor rural Quzhou city in Hebei province. Photo: SCMP
More than 100 Vietnamese brides who vanished after marrying bachelors from a poor rural area of the mainland are being sought by police, with reports yesterday suggesting an "organised ring" was behind the disappearance.
The men, from Quzhou , Hebei province, were introduced to the women by Wu Meiyu, a Vietnamese bride who had lived in the area for 20 years, mainland media reported.
Wu, who received payments of more than 100,000 yuan (HK$126,000) for successful introductions, disappeared with the women.
A state-run newspaper cited an unnamed local official saying that an organised ring may have been involved in the mass disappearance.
"With today's advanced communications, it's easy for all the brides to leave at the same time," he said.
Buying wives from Southeast Asian countries has become increasingly common in some of the mainland's poor rural areas, where a gender imbalance has developed due to a traditional preference for sons and the country's family planning policies. Across the mainland, 118 males are born for every 100 females, according to government statistics.
In some rural areas men can be expected to own a house, car and have considerable wealth - costs that could reach 400,000 yuan - before they can attract a Chinese bride.
But with many unable to afford such a cost the trade in overseas brides, which is often linked to human trafficking, has grown. Myanmar's government said in a 2011 report that most trafficking from the country was "committed solely with the intention of forcing girls and women into marriages with Chinese men".
Police on the mainland "rescued and repatriated" 1,281 abducted foreign women in 2012 alone, most of them from Southeast Asia, the state-run C hina Daily reported.
Experts say lax law enforcement in rural areas means thousands of other cases probably go undiscovered.
