Islamabad: The issue of women trafficking from Pakistan to China has been a significant concern in recent years, involving organized criminal networks, fraudulent marriages, and human rights violations in both countries. Multiple factors, including economic vulnerability, demographic imbalances, and weak law enforcement in Pakistan, drive the problem. As Islamabad continues to remain economically vulnerable and dependent on Beijing for its survival, the illegal trafficking of women from Pakistan is going to grow in the coming months. In a recent case, authorities at Islamabad airport arrested three suspects involved in a human trafficking network that lured Pakistani women into forced marriages and smuggled them to China. Experts believe that the female population in China is declining due to a widespread preference for male children amidst a weakening marriage system. Therefore, the Chinese are looking for third world nations such as Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, and others to traffick women in order to boost the local population. Pakistan tops the chart because of its economic dependency on Chinese loans and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Illegal traffickers from both countries are making fortunes out of the miseries of poverty-ridden Pakistani women.

Traffickers, with links to Chinese and Pakistani intermediaries, exploit vulnerable women—mostly from low-income minority communities in Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They lure families with promises of financial stability and arrange fake marriages with Chinese men. Once in China, many women face abuse, forced prostitution, and even organ trafficking. Some are abandoned or sold to other individuals. Families are often deceived into believing their daughters will have a prosperous life in China. Pakistan’s government should be alarmed by recent reports of trafficking of women and girls to China.

The one-child policy (1979-2015) led to a skewed sex ratio in China, causing a shortage of brides, especially in rural areas. Researchers estimate that China now has 30 to 40 million “missing women,” an imbalance caused by a preference for boys and exacerbated by the “one-child policy” in place from 1979 to 2015 and ongoing restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. This gender gap has made it difficult for many Chinese men to find wives and has fueled a demand for trafficked women from abroad.

In the recent trafficking incident, the suspects were identified as Shougui (Yousuf), Abdul Rehman, and Muhammad Nauman. A young woman who was being trafficked was also taken into protective custody. The suspects were intercepted while attempting to take the victim to China under the pretense of marriage and employment opportunities. Initial investigations revealed that the network facilitated marriages between Pakistani women and Chinese nationals as part of a trafficking operation. The gang, which includes several women, reportedly targeted impoverished and vulnerable women, coercing them into marriage. Investigators found that the suspects arranged travel documents and logistics for the victims.

Key agents, Rehman and Nauman, maintained contact with a Chinese associate named Paul, who arranged “clients” in exchange for large sums of money. Pakistani authorities also discovered that the suspects had struck a deal with the victim’s mother for PKR 1 million, of which PKR 150,000 had already been paid. Additionally, they coerced the victim into signing a PKR 1 million loan bond for blackmail purposes. In such a helpless situation, the victim is left with no choice as her family and traffickers make an expensive deal with Chinese traffickers. While Pakistan formed Anti-Human Trafficking Cells to stop these incidents, the government authorities have shown lackadaisical behavior in safeguarding women from becoming victims of trafficking to China.

In 2019, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented bride trafficking in Myanmar, where each year, hundreds of women and girls are deceived through false promises of employment into travelling to China, only to be sold to Chinese families as brides and held in sexual slavery, often for years. Those who escape often have to leave their children behind. Journalists have documented similar forms of bride trafficking from Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Experts believe that the Pakistani government has been ignoring incidents of women trafficking to avoid embarrassing China and to leverage this situation for continuous Chinese financial assistance in the country.  Despite reported “crackdowns,”Pakistani authorities have failed to dismantle trafficking networks, as government officials reportedly accept bribes to allow these operations to continue. In 2019, Pakistani authorities arrested dozens of individuals, including Chinese nationals, involved in trafficking. However, cases were reportedly dropped due to diplomatic pressure from Beijing.

Given the CPEC and the “strategic” bilateral ties between Pakistan and China, Islamabad is cautiously handling these cases to avoid conflict. Reports indicate that Chinese authorities have asked Pakistan to suppress media coverage of trafficking cases to prevent diplomatic fallout. Saleem Iqbal, a Christian human rights activist in Pakistan who has been tracking such fake marriages between Pakistani women and Chinese men, said he believed at least 700 women, mostly Christian, had wed Chinese men in just over a year. What happens to many of these women is unknown, but Human Rights Watch says they are “at risk of sexual slavery”.According to the 2023 Trafficking in Persons report by the U.S. Department of State, “traffickers target impoverished Christian communities in Pakistan to send women and girls to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for arranged marriages.”

What makes the Pakistani case different from the other contexts where such trafficking took place is the initial attention of the government and media to the issue and how it was brushed under the rug soon after. One of the main reasons behind this was the need to protect Pakistan’s exceedingly close economic and other relationship with China, especially after the official announcement of CPEC in 2015, given the lopsided power dynamic between the two countries. Regardless of that dynamic, Pakistan’s government owes it to its citizens to be more assertive with China on human rights abuses that affect them. More importantly, international organizations should urge Pakistan to protect its women from being illegally trafficked to China.