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Mimi Lau

Former child brides Ma Panyan and her sister Ma Panhui have found their quest for justice has only brought them further misery.
The siblings, who say their older sister was also sold into marriage as a young teen, claim Women’s Federation officials in their home county of Wushan, Chonqing, partnered with police to monitor them and stop them speaking to international journalists.
The claims, and the women’s stories of human trafficking, rape and subsequent childbirth while still in their teens, bring the issue of China’s “child brides” into the spotlight on the eve of International Women’s Day.
“I’m really very tired. I’m on the verge of breaking down,” Panhui said in an interview with the South China Morning Post while describing the surveillance she is currently under.

“I want to leave Wushan. I don’t know what they are going to do to me next. I have no freedom, I can’t even rest as these people are breathing down my neck everywhere I go.
“I just want justice ... I have not studied much so I don’t know how to express myself, but why did I come to this world to endure so much cruelty?” she asked.
The tale began in 1997, when the three girls were put in the care of an uncle after their mother killed their abusive father then fled. The uncle, Ma Zhengsong, gave the oldest girl, Panzhen, to another rural family as a child bride the following year, when she was 13, and received 2,500 yuan in return.
China has an ancient tradition of child brides, in which a girl, usually orphaned or from an impoverished background, would be taken into a family and raised to become the wife of one of the family’s sons.
Although banned in 1950, the practice continues in rural China, where the ancient saying, “The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away”, is still used in reference to Beijing and unwanted laws.
Girl, five, rescued from suspected child traffickers in China
In 2011, provincial news portal Hebei.com.cn reported on a 12-year-old girl who was rescued from the Shijiazhuang train station before she was sold for 40,000 yuan to Inner Mongolia to be married to a mentally disabled man 12 years her senior.
In January, China Youth Daily reported that a 39-year-old woman from Yiwu, Zhejiang province, had reunited with her family after being abducted and sold as a child bride to Fujian province in 1990 at the age of 12.
Six years ago, mainland media outlets reported on a village in the Putian area of Fujian province that had “adopted’ more than 600 child brides in just one year.
The middle Ma sister, Panyan, said she was 12 when she was given as a bride to 29-year-old Chen Xuesheng in 2000. Her uncle received 3,000 yuan in return.
Two years later, Panyan gave birth to her first child, a girl, while she was only 14. She later had a son, when she was 19. The minimum legal age of marriage in China is 18.
Youngest sister Panhui was married to 24-year-old Luo Pinjin when she was 12, for the price of 4,000 yuan, and gave to a son when she was 15, and a daughter later. She stayed in her “marriage” for 10 years, then fled.
Pregnant 12-year-old confirmed by Chinese authorities to have been abducted from Vietnam
The younger girls reunited in Guangdong, where they both worked as migrant workers, and decided to pursue justice.
Last year, Panyan the only one of the three whose marriage was registered, was granted a divorce by the Wushan county government. Local courts refused to consider her charges of raped by Chen at the age of 12, citing the 10-year statute of limitations on such charges. It did issue a “severe warning” to the civil affairs official who issued the marriage certificate without Panyan’s presence.
The women returned to Wushan this year to file police reports, demand apologies and press for justice.
Today, they say, they are under pressure from the government for bringing negative attention.
“[Wushan] police have sent officials and police to trail us everywhere we go,” Panhui said. “A local Women’s Federation official set us up in a hotel but arranged to have four men sleeping across from our room who left their door open to watch over us even at night to stop us from escaping.”
She believes all of the sisters’ cellphones are tapped.
“I don’t understand why the government and Women’s Federation officials would gang up to stand for criminals, she said. “How can I submit to such injustice?”


China’s former child brides refuse to be silenced

Sisters Ma Panyan, left, and Ma Panhui want justice for their ordeal. Photo: Handout

China’s former child brides refuse to be silenced

Sisters fight for justice after being sold as brides while still children