WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION, MARRIAGE AND TRAFFICKING…
to China to work as sex workers (Vu and Nguyen, 2002). It quoted a
border guard saying:
“For young women, they are cheated to China to work as
sex workers in bars and restaurants. In this case, the traffickers
may receive 300-500 yuan (37-62 US$)). When they
no longer fit for the job, the owner may sell them again
[for those Chinese men who want to marry Vietnamese
women] for higher prices. There are many Vietnamese
women who work as cave (prostitute) in China. They are
the majority in nearly all brothels.” (Vu and Nguyen, 2002:
43).
In the present study, 15 out of 213 returnees (7 percent) were trafficked
to work as sex workers. This number, however, does not tell us
the actual scope of commercial sex work in Chinese towns. According
to the in-depth information provided by one returnee, in her establishment
(a hotel) there were a few dozen Vietnamese sex workers. Her
establishment is just one among many others, where Vietnamese girls
and women are serving clients, both Vietnamese and Chinese. Sex
workers might be underrepresented in our sample since it might be
particularly difficult for sex workers to escape. Working as illegal workers,
their employers confine them so they do not run away.
3.4. Traffickers
The Vietnamese supply of wives and commercial sex workers into
China is brought about by traffickers. While no interview was made in
this study with traffickers, and no police report or court case statistics
are available to have a sketch of the traffickers’ profile, interviews with
the returnees and their relatives provide some information of whom
the traffickers are and what tricks they use to lure women and girls.
Traffickers that approached the surveyed women are from different
backgrounds. They are mostly women, although occasionally there
are men involved, as in the case of one respondent who was approached
by a Vietnamese man who offered the woman to marry a
middle-aged Chinese man. Traffickers can be relatives, friends, or
people from the same community.
“Sometimes, they can be our neighbours. They convinced
us to follow them to get a job with good income. There are
cases when they [traffickers] are even cousins. I know a
case when a sister-in-law cheated her husband’s younger
sister. The parents [of the victim] thought she [the victim]
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