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In China, thousands of Myanmar women are forced into childbirth

  • More than 7,500 women from Myanmar were in forced marriages with Chinese men in the past five years, according to a new study

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A Kachin refugee with her grandchild at a refugee camp in northern Myanmar. Photo: AP

More than 7,500 women from Myanmar have gone through forced marriages with Chinese men in the past five years, a new study has found, with most coerced into bearing children with their husbands.

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According to the research by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, about 65 per cent of women in forced marriages were trafficked through a broker or recruiter.
“This points to problems such as lack of documentation, ongoing conflict in ethnic minority areas [in Myanmar], migration usually without documents into China, work without contracts, marriages without licences and children without proper registration when they are born,” said Courtland Robinson, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. “All of which leads to forced marriage, coercion and various forms of violence and exploitation.”

The slave who took on Hong Kong |

The study, which was presented in Bangkok on Friday, found that Myanmese women are increasingly at risk of trafficking, including into forced marriage.

In the past five years, about 106,000 female migrants returned from China to Myanmar. Some 5,000 returnees went through forced marriages with Chinese men and 2,800 were forced to bear a child.

Among those still living in China last year – about 65,000 women – 2,500 were in forced marriages and 2,300 were forced to have a child, the latest study shows.

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There are about 34 million more men than women in China as a result of the country’s former one-child policy, fuelling bride trafficking from neighbouring countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and North Korea.

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