Rescued Myanmar woman Kai Kai learns to write Chinese characters.
Gansu Daily - Lanzhou Morning Post (reporter Xian Jianyang) reported that since early September 2011, the police of Tongwei County spent four months solving a cross-border trafficking case supervised by the Ministry of Public Security and dismantling a criminal gang composed of family members who were involved in trafficking women. All five suspects involved in the case have been arrested, and ten trafficked women, including nine from Myanmar, were rescued.
Cooperation letter from Yunnan Police
On September 7, 2011, the Criminal Investigation Team of Tongwei County Public Security Bureau received a cooperation letter from the Criminal Investigation Team of Zhenkang County Public Security Bureau in Yunnan Province. The letter stated that a few days ago, Zhenkang County Public Security Bureau received a cooperation letter from the Anti-Trafficking Office in Myitkyina, Myanmar, which said that a 26-year-old woman named Ma Ye Min Suo from Merglar Tung District, Yangon, Myanmar, was trafficked to Gansu Province two years ago. Currently, this woman has an eight-month-old son with Guo Xiao San (a phonetic translation) at No. 3 Jinqing Village, Tongwei County. This woman provided a mobile phone number and a landline number when she sought help from the Myanmar side. Zhenkang County Public Security Bureau requested Tongwei County police to verify the specific address and personnel situation of the trafficked woman, hoping that the Tongwei police would assist in her rescue.
Tongwei County Public Security Bureau took this matter very seriously and arranged for officers to investigate Jinping Village in Maying Town on the day they received the cooperation letter. However, no Myanmar women or other trafficked women were found in the village. Subsequently, while investigating the assistance telephone mentioned in the cooperation letter, the police discovered that the landline number came from Tuanjie Village, Changhe Town, Tongwei County. After investigating the situation in the village, the police found the Myanmar-born trafficked woman Ma Ye Min Suo at Zhu Xiangzhi's home.
After extensive work by the Tongwei police, Ma Ye Min Suo was rescued on September 8. After being rescued, Ma Ye Min Suo told the police: In August 2009, she met a 30-year-old Myanmar woman named "Ah Xian" in Myanmar's Qing Shui area, who claimed she could help her find a job in China with a monthly salary of 1,000 RMB. Believing it to be true, Ma Ye Min Suo followed "Ah Xian" along with two other Myanmar women, Nong Nong Mei and Bao Bao Qi, entering China through Yunnan Province. After entering the country, "Ah Xian" met up with a Chinese man, and under his guidance, they were sent to Wushan County in Gansu Province. Ma Ye Min Suo was then taken alone to Tongwei County and sold to Zhu Xiangzhi as a wife.
On September 8, 2011, the Tongwei police officially launched an investigation into the case of Ma Ye Min Suo's trafficking and established a special task force. On September 20, the Gansu Provincial Public Security Department listed this case as a supervised case.
Zhu Xiangzhi confessed that he was getting older and had never found a partner. In early 2009, he met Zhang Baogang, a native of Wushan County who ran a "One Yuan Store" in Bangluo Town, Tongwei County. Zhang Baogang claimed he could "introduce him to a partner." In early September 2009, he met Ma Ye Min Suo at Zhang Baogang's "One Yuan Store," and after paying Zhang Baogang 45,000 RMB, he took Ma Ye Min Suo away.
Subsequently, the Tongwei police went to Bangluo Town for investigation and found out that Wushan man Zhang Baogang had closed his shop and left Bangluo Town half a year earlier. Through investigation, the officers went to Zhang Baogang's registered residence in Zhanggou Village, Zhoutou Township, Wushan County, only to learn that Zhang Baogang had gone to Xinjiang for work several months earlier, but the exact location was unknown. The Tongwei police immediately sent a cooperation letter to the Xinjiang police to track down Zhang Baogang's whereabouts.
Family-based cross-border human trafficking gang
On September 30, 2011, the Hami police in Xinjiang informed that Zhang Baogang had been captured by the local police. On October 5, the Tongwei police escorted Zhang Baogang back to Tongwei from Hami.
Through interrogation, the police discovered that Zhang Baogang was a member of a cross-border human trafficking gang, acting as the final link in the chain of trafficking women. He usually operated in remote mountainous areas, responsible for gathering information about local unmarried young men of marriageable age, then acted as a broker, selling the trafficked women to these men as wives. According to Zhang Baogang's confession, he contacted the trafficked women through his cousin Zhang Shibao. His cousin Zhang Shibao, along with Zhang Suibao, were also members of this trafficking gang, acting as brokers, generally operating in Wushan and Gangu areas. The trafficked women were brought from Yunnan by Wei Junwei, Zhang Shibao's uncle, and handed over to them. These trafficked women all came from Myanmar, and over the years, more than ten women had been trafficked through their hands. According to Zhang Baogang's confession, another Myanmar woman named Kai Kai was introduced by him and sold to a villager in Gaocun Village, Changhe Town. As for Ma Ye Min Suo's mention of Bao Bao Qi, she was sold by his cousin to Wushan, and another woman, Nong Nong Mei, was sold to Fuyang, Anhui. Subsequently, the Tongwei police rescued another Myanmar-born woman, Kai Kai, who had been trafficked to Tongwei.
The Tongwei police immediately reported the case investigation to the Dingxi Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Gansu Provincial Public Security Department. On October 13, 2011, the Anti-Trafficking Special Action Office of the Ministry of Public Security listed this case as the 268th supervised case of the national anti-trafficking special action. Thereafter, the Tongwei County Public Security Bureau, Dingxi Municipal Public Security Bureau, and Gansu Provincial Public Security Department once again formed a special task force to handle this case.
Subsequently, the task force split into three groups: one group went to Yunnan, responsible for repatriating Ma Ye Min Suo and attempting to capture Wei Junwei; another group went to Fuyang, Anhui, to investigate the whereabouts of the trafficked woman Nong Nong Mei; the last group investigated Zhang Shibao and Zhang Suibao and implemented their arrest.
On October 20, the task force police officers, after surveillance, captured the suspect Zhang Shibao in Zhanggou Village, Zhoutou Township, Wushan County. Half a month later, another suspect Zhang Suibao surrendered to the police due to pressure.
On October 26, after more than half a month of effort, the task force police officers successfully rescued the trafficked woman Nong Nong Mei with the cooperation of the local police in Fuyang, Anhui.
The task force police officers who went to Yunnan immediately repatriated Ma Ye Min Suo to Myanmar upon arriving in Zhenkang County, Yunnan. However, during subsequent investigations in the area, the task force learned that the main perpetrator of the trafficking gang, Wei Junwei, had previously rented a house in Nansha Town, a border region of Zhenkang County, and then fled to Myanmar upon hearing the news. The police's capture operation was temporarily obstructed.
Successful capture of the main perpetrator of the gang
From late October to late November 2011, based on the information obtained, the task force police officers separately rescued seven trafficked women from Wushan and Gangu areas, six of whom were from Myanmar, and one was from Zhenkang County, Yunnan. By then, all 10 trafficked women investigated and confirmed by the police had been successfully rescued.
Although the trafficked women were rescued, the main perpetrators of the cross-border trafficking gang were still at large. During the questioning of the rescued women, the police learned that all trafficked women were related to a 30-year-old Myanmar woman. This woman used aliases such as Ah Xian and Mang Gui, with her real name being Li Manhui, who had been cohabiting with Wei Junwei. Li Manhui lured the trafficked women into China from Myanmar's Qing Shui and Lao Jie areas under the pretense of finding jobs or introducing partners in China. Then, Wei Junwei contacted buyers through Zhang Baogang, Zhang Shibao, and Zhang Suibao, selling the trafficked women to others as wives for prices ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 RMB.
On December 13, 2011, the task force members once again headed to the Sino-Myanmar border in Zhenkang County, Yunnan, to opportunistically capture Wei Junwei and Li Manhui.
At around 6 p.m. on December 31, as soon as Li Manhui entered China from the Nansha border port, she was captured by the task force police officers who had been waiting for a long time. Four hours later, Wei Junwei, who entered subsequently, was also captured by the police.
On January 7, 2012, Wei Junwei and Li Manhui were escorted to Tongwei by the task force police officers. Thus, this family-based cross-border trafficking gang was completely dismantled.
Reporters learned during interviews that most of the trafficked Myanmar women came from the Kokang Autonomous Region of Myanmar's Shan State, only 9 kilometers away from the Sino-Myanmar border port of Nansha. Some mountainous areas there had relatively poor economic conditions. Li Manhui and Wei Junwei exploited the desire of the trafficked women to find jobs and partners, deceiving them into entering China from Myanmar and subsequently sending them to remote inland mountainous areas. The trafficked women often did not understand Chinese and could not communicate with others. When meeting potential buyers, they thought they were meeting employers and willingly followed the buyers home. Some women deceived under the pretext of being introduced to partners were told by Li Manhui and Wei Junwei that the male party's family conditions were good and would pay tens of thousands of yuan as dowry money, which they would deliver to the trafficked women's families. Ultimately, the trafficked women were sent to remote mountainous areas with poor conditions, and their families did not receive a single cent.
Most trafficked women chose to stay
Yinshan Community of Gaocun Village, Changhe Town is located deep in the mountains, 60 kilometers south of Tongwei County. It is arid and rainy here throughout the year, and the villagers mainly rely on natural rainfall for their livelihoods, making the economy relatively backward.
On the afternoon of January 12, reporters found Kai Kai, a Myanmar-born trafficked woman, in Gaocun Village. She was heavily pregnant and tidying up the new house she and Tian Maohua had built in over four months. Kai Kai said that the money for the new house included her own savings, which were earned together with her husband Tian Maohua working in Inner Mongolia this year. Kai Kai is 27 years old and was sold to the local villager Tian Maohua, aged 37, for 41,000 yuan two years ago by Li Manhui and Wei Junwei. Two months earlier, after the Tongwei police arrested Zhang Baogang, they rescued Kai Kai from Gaocun Village. Since Kai Kai was already five months pregnant at the time, the police asked for her opinion. If she wished to return to her home country, the police would send her back to Myanmar. Kai Kai ultimately chose to stay.
Local villagers told reporters that Kai Kai is hardworking and filial to her in-laws, enjoying a good reputation among the villagers.
Kai Kai is a very outgoing and optimistic woman. Now, she is very satisfied with her life in China, can fluently speak the local dialect, and can write her name in Chinese characters. Over the past two years, she and Tian Maohua have worked on the same construction site in Inner Mongolia, where Tian Maohua paints walls and Kai Kai screens sand and mixes mortar. When talking about her experience working on the construction site, Kai Kai laughed heartily and said that when she first arrived, due to language barriers, she didn't know how to use the tools and didn't know the names of the tools, often requiring the foreman to demonstrate many times before she understood his intentions, making the foreman frequently feel helpless about her.
"At first, I didn't know that Kai Kai was trafficked, nor did I know she was from Myanmar," Kai Kai's husband Tian Maohua told reporters. Their family has three brothers, with the two elder brothers having already settled down in other places. His parents lived with him, with his father suffering from severe cataracts and unable to work, and his mother being chronically ill. The family only had about ten acres of dry mountain fields, relying almost entirely on natural rainfall for their livelihood. Due to poor family conditions, he had never found a suitable partner.
In late October 2009, Tian Maohua met Zhang Baogang while working. Zhang Baogang said he was willing to introduce him to a partner. Under Zhang Baogang's introduction, Li Manhui and Wei Junwei brought Kai Kai to meet Tian Maohua.
"When I first met Kai Kai, she was talking gibberish with another man and woman, and I couldn't understand a word. I wanted to communicate with Kai Kai, but what I said she couldn't understand, and what she said I couldn't understand either, so we had to rely on that man and woman to translate," Tian Maohua told reporters. Through the translator, he learned that Kai Kai was from Yunnan and was willing to marry him as his wife, but he had to give her family a dowry. Eventually, they agreed on a dowry of 41,000 yuan. On that day, after Tian Maohua paid the money, Kai Kai followed him home.
Tian Maohua told reporters that at first, he couldn't communicate with Kai Kai at all and could only use gestures. It wasn't until six months later that Kai Kai could slowly communicate with him in Chinese, and only then did he learn that Kai Kai was from Myanmar.
"Li Manhui deceived me. She promised to give the dowry money to my parents, but my family hasn't seen a penny of it until now," Kai Kai told reporters. Her home is in Kokang, Myanmar. She is the eldest, with three younger brothers, and her family is very poor. Two years ago, she sold pancakes in Laojie, Myanmar, and met Li Manhui through a friend. Li Manhui claimed she could introduce her to a Chinese partner who would pay her family a dowry, and after returning to Myanmar, they would hand over the money to her parents.
Kai Kai admitted that Tian Maohua's family economic conditions were not good, and she married him initially because it could bring her family a substantial income. A few months later, when she contacted her family, they said they had never received any dowry money.
Kai Kai said that later she found Tian Maohua to be honest, hardworking, and liked him, gradually integrating into the local life. When the police found her and asked if she wanted to return home, she chose to stay.
"I'm not going back to Myanmar now, although I miss my family very much. If I go back, it will definitely be with Tian Maohua and our child, and then we'll come back," Kai Kai firmly told reporters.
During the interview, reporters learned that all nine Myanmar-born women rescued by the police had lived in China for more than two years and had children or were pregnant. Except for Ma Ye Min Suo, who clearly expressed her willingness to be repatriated by the police, the rest indicated their willingness to stay. Investigators said they had specifically consulted the Ministry of Public Security regarding the issue of whether the trafficked women should stay or leave. The Ministry of Public Security stated that if the trafficked women indeed voluntarily choose to live in China, deportation can be considered temporarily unnecessary.
Currently, five members of Wei Junwei's trafficking gang have been criminally detained, and two buyers are under bail pending trial. The case is still under further investigation. (All names of the trafficked women in the article are phonetic translations.)