Comments on: China’s “missing women phenomenon” fueling bride trafficking of North Korean refugees

By: JH

JH — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:35:55 +0000

Oh I see, I was misled by this statement:
“According to the State Department, China has made some active efforts at assisting victims of human trafficking by setting up shelters with the help of UNICEF, however, the country lacks any sort of coherent victim identification system which is a consistent hurdle in dealing with the problem.”

Here is an excerpt from the Country Narrative on China in the 2008 TIP Report:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/105387.htm
“China made incremental progress in victim protection during the reporting period. The government, with the assistance of UNICEF, built a new shelter to provide trafficking victims in Yunnan Province with short-term care, but there remain overall an inadequate number of shelters for victims of trafficking.”

I was confused because I’ve never heard of any UNICEF activity in Yanbian (Jilin province), where there is the highest concentration of North Korean victims of trafficking, stateless children, and orphans.

It doesn’t make sense that China would actively hunt down North Koreans and yet allow temporary relief shelters for sex trafficking victims. China never has and never will allow UNICEF (or any other UN body for that matter) to operate in Yanbian – this is an overlooked tragedy especially because stateless children (Han Chinese father, North Korean mother) are actually Chinese citizens.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:45:08 +0000

JH, I do not have any links on immediate hand, but I did a quick search and was given numerous links about UNICEF’s work in China. Here is a UNICEF China page: http://www.unicef.org/china/index.html — Maybe you can find what you’re looking for in there.

By: JH

JH — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:32:53 +0000

Do you have any links or documentation of UNICEF activity in NE China?

By: Sonagi

Sonagi — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:04:13 +0000

I recall the government’s campaign, but I don’t know that it had much effect. A family isn’t going to raise a girl so that another family will have a Korean daughter-in-law instead of a foreign one.

By: usinkorea

usinkorea — Sat, 09 May 2009 23:07:59 +0000

I wouldn’t want to make too big a deal of this point, but, in relation to Sonagi’s comment: I think the public relations campaign about “Do you want your son’s to marry a bunch of foreigners!!” had a hand in reversing the male baby trend too.

I remember hearing about a poster campaign on the subways that showed a Southeast Asian bride with a Korean groom with that type of slogan on it. I can also remember other public relations campaign items along this line and editorials in the newspapers and so on.

I can vaguely remember these stories in the papers about the number of foreign brides, especially from poor Asian nations, coming out within the last few years. (With one theme also being, besides the preference for male babies causing this, that rural farmers were having trouble finding Korean brides as well).

By: Sonagi

Sonagi — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:50:15 +0000

Back in the early 90s, South Korea and China had similarly skewed birth ratios of around 117 boys to 100 girls. While China’s number of boys remains stuck in the double digits, South Korea’s has dropped to about 108:100, very close to the high end of the normal range of 103-106. Besides active choices like sperm sorting, abortion, and infanticide, passive natural and artificial environmental influences like famine and pollution can favor the birth of one sex over the other.

Unfortunately some Western images of South Korea are stuck in the 90s, and they still think sex selection is a big problem in South Korea. It isn’t. South Korea resolved its birth ratio problem not with government interference but through enduring changes in cultural attitudes, changes more easily achieved in a democratic society than in an authoritarian one because in a democratic society, stakeholders have a public voice.

Sorry for going off on a tangent. You didn’t mention South Korea’s birth ratio, but some readers of this post might make the connection, and I wanted to clarify this misconception.