The human trafficking racket involving Chinese smugglers and Pakistani women is not only a source of concern but also of introspection. The accused conned Pakistani families by marrying girls with the help of local agents and the victims were subjected to sexual exploitation after being trafficked to China soon after their ‘fake’ marriage.
The problem is not limited to Pakistan. Similar cases have popped up from Myanmar, Vietnam, and a host of other poor countries. In some cases, women are lured on the pretext of ‘decent’ jobs, but those jobs invariably turn out to be forced sex work. In other cases, the lure is of marriage, but again, except for lucky few, the ‘husbands’ only goal is to make the women victims of marital rape, sexual slavery, and sometimes outright prostitution.
On the Pakistani — or more broadly, poorer country — end, the cause of such a racket is clear cut. Poverty and lack of opportunities forced many desperate women to pursue greener pastures. Pakistani and Chinese smugglers used this desperation to their advantage. On the Chinese side, the issue is much broader. The world’s oldest profession always needs workers, whether voluntary or coerced. The rapid economic development of urban China has seen a coinciding rise in international and domestic — rural to urban — sex trafficking. The fact that prostitution is illegal in China means that trafficked sex workers are unlikely to approach the police for help.
Meanwhile, China has the most skewed gender ratio in the world –1.15 men per woman — an unforeseen byproduct of the one-child policy of the past. A preference for sons — seen as old age crutches — led to an artificially-induced shortage of women, and all of those single men will invariably seek relief somewhere.
This is also a warning for Pakistan. Although the gender ratio is not as skewed as China, it is 1.068 among the ages of 15 and 64, and over 1.05 from birth to age 15. In a society where marriage is regarded as virtually universal and social status and acceptance depend largely on being married, such an imbalance will invariably lead ‘undesirable’ single men towards antisocial, and even dangerous behaviour.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 10th, 2019.
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