CORRUPTION

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Child Trafficking in China: Who Are Female Perpetrators? Child Trafficking in China: Who are Female Perpetrators? Dr. Anqi Shen Teesside University Abstract Trafficking in children is a long-lasting social problem in China. While evidence shows that the majority of child trafficking incidents in the country involve women as perpetrators, females’ involvement in the illicit trade is underrepresented. This short essay focuses on women perpetrators in child trafficking in China. It intends to explore who female traffickers are, what motivates women to engage in child trafficking, how they access children, and what role they play in the trafficking processes. By examining female child traffickers, this essay hopes to look deeper into the child trafficking trade and to gain an in-depth understanding of the problem so as to help find better solutions to respond to it. Introduction Trafficking in children is a long-lasting, nationwide social problem prevalent in China’s history. Traditionally, children are placed in a subordinate social and familial position in China, and it is culturally accepted that adults hold a superior position over children. In pre-liberation China, children were regarded as the property of their parents and subjected to abuses. Domestic abuses against children were justified under parental authority. Despite increasing emphasis placed on child protection in policy and practice since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), children’s status is still discounted, especially in the country’s underdeveloped rural areas. International Affairs Forum Causes of child trafficking in China are complex, and the social ill is the product of the interplay between multiple deeply rooted traditional, cultural, and socioeconomic factors, as well as some negative effects of public policy. Child trafficking remains a social problem in the reform era. Often, the Population Planning Policy (jihua shengyu zhengce), formerly known as the “One Child Policy”, is believed to be the cause of child trafficking in China. However, given the long history of the problem in the country, the population control policy certainly is not a root cause of child trafficking, although it has facilitated the child trade by creating further demand for children in the criminal market. Trafficking in children, like human trafficking as a whole, is a complex and variegated social phenomenon. This short essay focuses only on one dimension of child trafficking in China – female perpetrators. It intends to explore who female child traffickers are; what motivates them to engage in the child trade; how they access children; and what role they play in the trafficking processes. Understanding perpetrators’ – in this case, female traffickers’ – motivations and operational behaviour 108
International Affairs Forum Fall 2016 ...the majority of trafficking incidents involve women as perpetrators, and women appear to play a recognizable role throughout the trafficking process. helps us to gain deep insights into the illicit human trade and helps to work out how the problem can be better tackled at both policy and practical levels. Who are female child traffickers? Official documentations, news reports, and academic studies (e.g., Shen et. al., 2013) all indicate that the majority of trafficking incidents involve women as perpetrators, and women appear to play a recognizable role throughout the trafficking processes. Who are female child traffickers, then? Existing research (e.g., Ren 1996; Shen 2015, 2016; Zhao 2003) consistently suggests that female human traffickers in China are often poorly educated rural women, many of whom are illiterate. They are typically mature women, with a narrow vision, and limited life experiences. In a recent study I conducted of female perpetrators in child trafficking (Shen 2016), the majority of the women traffickers were originally from impoverished, remote, mountainous regions in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, who were either rural migrant workers in the city or peasant farmers residing in their birthplaces prior to their arrests. The study forges a link between these women’s poor education and lack of life experiences and their involvement in child trafficking. Two interpretations can be offered. First, poor education limits the rural women’s ability to judge right from wrong, especially in areas with moral ambiguities, such as the child trade. Traditional Chinese culture values family ties. In this cultural context, enabling a full family unit with parents and children (sons and daughters) is traditionally viewed as a social good. It is, therefore, difficult for poorly educated individuals to understand that trading children as commodities is the wrong way of valuing them. My research (Shen 2015) shows that female child traffickers commonly failed to recognize that trafficking in children violates the fundamental rights of those children as human beings and is thus unacceptable. Second, illiteracy and inadequate education prevent people from gaining knowledge as to the nature and consequences of their wrongdoing, which would otherwise have enabled better informed decision-making. While information about human trafficking – detailing such things as the illegality of the child trade and its legal consequences – is widely available in the popular media, ironically, the populations who most need this information are unable to access it through these media channels. Public education does not seem to reach the populations who most need the awareness of human trafficking and trafficking laws – those who live in the remote, mountainous areas where there are technical difficulties communicating with the villagers; rural migrants who are highly mobilized from one place to another in the city are also excluded. As demonstrated in my 2015 study (Shen 2015), quite often the female traffickers were first-time offenders, who were unaware, for example, that taking a baby from one place to another for others could amount to trafficking and result in a long- Fall 2016 109
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Fall 2016 Volume 7, Issue 2 CORRUPT
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HUMAN TRAFFICKING 73 Interview with
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Special Themed Issue: Editors’ In
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9 Corruption - Security: Forging US
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Political Will - or Political Won
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Political Will - or Political Won
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New Methods to Engage Civil Society
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New Methods to Engage Civil Society
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Transparency and Open Contracting T
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Page 60 and 61: Treating Health and Pharmaceutical
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Page 64 and 65: Interview with Professor Emerita He
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REFERENCES AND FOOTNOTES Corruption
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%e2%80%9chow-to%e2%80%9d/, 25 Novem
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1 By Law No. 228/2003. 2 In particu
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Shen, Anqi (2015). Offending Women
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direct experience of some of the is
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