Love for Sale: China’s Falling Marriage Rates Drive Bride Trafficking Surge

China's record-low 6.1 million marriages in 2024 is plunging its population crisis even deeper and spurring demand for trafficked brides from neighboring countries. The sex gap, a hangover from the one-child policy, has created tens of millions of bachelor males, particularly rural China. Trafficker...

China's record-low 6.1 million marriages in 2024 is plunging its population crisis even deeper and spurring demand for trafficked brides from neighboring countries. The sex gap, a hangover from the one-child policy, has created tens of millions of bachelor males, particularly rural China. Traffickers exploit the shortage by smuggling women from Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Pakistan under offers of jobs or voluntary marriage. Once they reach China, the women are sold for $3,000–$13,000 and often are abused, forced to work, and coerced into giving birth. Government efforts to stop trafficking and promote marriage are thwarted by the illicit nature of the operations. Experts are warning that correcting China's population issue requires institutional change, including economic and gender reforms. Source: The Conversation, Human Rights Watch