Chinese Human Trafficking Ring Busted, Women Saved From Forced Prostitution In Angola

Angolan and Chinese police jointly broke up a criminal ring that abducted Chinese women and forced them into a life of prostitution, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency. China's Ministry of Public Security told China Daily Wednesday that police rescued 19 Chinese women.

Ghana's Citi News notes the women served Angola's expatriate communities, according to an investigation from Enslavement Prevention Alliance-West Africa.

The operation, which targeted women from poor socio-economic backgrounds, allegedly promised to pay for their plane tickets and visa applications in exchange for employment as a servant or foot masseur.

But as soon as they arrived in Angola, they were put under strict surveillance and had their passports taken away, forcing them into sex slavery to pay back their traffickers, according to China Daily.

"Although we found we had been cheated, the local public security was in disorder and we didn't have enough money to go back to China. We were mentally and physical exhausted, almost desperate. Finally we had to obey them," said Li Jie, one of the women victims from Sichuan province, in an interview with China Daily.

Police arrested 11 suspects in Angola last month, while another five suspects were later arrested in China, according to Xinhuanet, the English language version of the Xinhua News Agency.

According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, China is both a source of and destination for human trafficking. Other trafficking destinations include Thailand, Malaysia, Africa, Europe and America.

Human trafficking has become big business across the globe, one that the Clinton Global Initiative estimates to be worth up to $50 billion, with about 20 million modern-day slaves worldwide.

Comments

[cupcake77]

03:05 PM on 11/19/2011

Human life can be very, very cheap.....especially for women.

[lsg0013]

02:11 AM on 11/18/2011

"the women served Angola's expatriate communities"

I know what an expatriate is; but what exactly does this statement mean? Does this mean corporations are involved somehow, as opposed to organized crime.

[gavrielle]

11:53 PM on 11/22/2011

Expats are usually businessmen and their families or retirees. I doubt that any legitimate corporations are directly involved. Why would they be?

[lsg0013]

04:25 AM on 11/23/2011

I don't know. Why are these women brought to serve expatriates (versus the native Angolan population?) I found that an odd fact. For the sake of debate, aren't there enough native prostitutes?

[lsg0013]

05:45 AM on 11/23/2011

I couldn't reply to your second response directly, so I'm re-replying to this one. Thanks for the information on Angola. After I read your first response, I looked it up on Wikipedia. It looks like a very beautiful place indeed.

Also, I love your cat avatar picture :-)

[majesticjkr]

10:28 PM on 11/17/2011

i bet most of these top people in power have used the odd call girl now and then.

[Bob Pante]

01:34 AM on 11/18/2011

I don't see a problem with a call girl, if she is an adult doing it of her own freel will. Maybe it it were legal it would put the hunam traffickers out of business.

[gavrielle]

12:08 AM on 11/23/2011

It's legal in quite a few places, but that doesn't stop anyone from wanting to cut corners. Sex workers get old fast in that business and recruitment isn't easy. No young woman ever dreams of selling her body. They do it because they have no choice. Even high priced call girls only do it because they want or need the money, not because it's really something they enjoy. If this weren't the case the traffickers wouldn't have to lie to these young women about the sort of work they'd be doing.

And just in case you want to know how I know this, I've known at least three women who were call girls and several prostitutes over the course of my life. Not one of them wanted to be in the business. It was a means to an end only. The end being money. And what they thought about the men... Let's just say they despised the vast majority. And the one or two who were "nice" and paid for apartments, cars and other amenities were referred to as "vics", i.e. victims. It's an ugly business, no matter how much television and the movies try to romanticize it. And those involved know it.

[kyle76066]

09:28 PM on 11/17/2011

The sex-slave trade is almost everywhere in the world. You don't really think the U.N. cares, do you?

[2manchew]

11:13 AM on 11/18/2011

Of course the do. They shut down the ones they aren't running.