Groups helping Chinese women and children tricked into prostitution or hard labour by cross-border human traffickers note a decline in the number of victims at their shelters - not because the problem is subsiding, but because traffickers are becoming more sophisticated. And promises of a better life are hard to resist. It's a sensitive topic local government officials and police are reluctant to discuss. Yet it's a reality no one in the border areas of southwestern China's Yunnan Province can deny.
An official checkpoint at the Myanmar-Thai border. Chinese women trafficked to Thailand mostly come over via Myanmar. The house was built with money Yu Lian not her real name saved during her four-year work stint in Malaysia along with that of her sister's. Yu Lian, of Dai ethnicity, ended up in Malaysia through cross-border human trafficking, recalls the year-old woman who now waits back in her native village for the day she will marry her Taiwanese fiance.
In , a young male villager approached Yu Lian, then 18, and her cousin, and talked them into "buying gold" in Thailand, with all of the travel expenses to be covered by him. Intrigued by his words, the two girls left their home in Menghai, which shares a The two girls followed the man along mountain trails all the way from Small Mengla to Kengtung in Myanmar , "sleeping only when we could walk no more", recounts Yu Lian, who had never been to the county seat before crossing the border.
When they reached Mae Sai on the Thai border after several days of trekking, the girls were handed over to a Thai woman in her 40s.
From there they went onto Bangkok and were taken to a nightclub right away. Only then did the girls realize the true purpose of the trip. With help from other young women already working at the club, some of whom were from Myanmar, Yu Lian and her cousin were able to contact police on their second day in Bangkok.
