Hundreds of foreign mail-order brides rescued
SHIJIAZHUANG - Police in North China's Hebei province have rescued 206 foreign women whowere illegally purchased by desperate bachelors over the last two years, local officials saidThursday.
Police in the province also rescued 3,500 women and children abducted from areas aroundChina as part of a campaign against human trafficking, said Yan Zeli, an official from theprovincial public security bureau.
Yan said some rural families in Hebei still retain an old custom of purchasing wives for men whocannot find suitable Chinese spouses. These families have been more able to afford to buymail-order wives in recent years, as their incomes have increased.
Police have busted more than 429 trafficking rings and arrested 556 suspects since thecampaign started in 2009, Yan said.
The mail-order bride trade is not isolated to Hebei. In the past, women were sometimeskidnapped from relatively poor areas in southwest China and sold to rural families in thewealthier central and eastern provinces. However, mail-order brides have become morepopular in recent years.
"Some foreign women are tricked into moving to rural China for job opportunities or falsemarriages," Yan said, adding that the women come from a host of countries, including Laos,Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) andMongolia.
Yan said police are helping the women return to their home countries. Source
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