Antislavery Usable Past

Htoi Moon Ja

2019 (Narrative date)

The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were over 3.8 million people living in conditions of modern slavery in China. Women and girls from South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa are trafficked in to forced marriage in the country for fees of up to £30,000. The gender imbalance caused by the One Child Policy and the cultural preference for male children, has caused a shortage of women which has led to the trafficking of women to be sold as brides. As a result many women find themselves either deceived by promises of employment, sold or abducted and forced into marrying Chinese men who have paid for them.

Htoi Moon Ja and her family were displaced in 2011. She was 16 when family friends invited her to vacation in China with them. She agreed, fighting was occurring in her village, her mother had died and she and two siblings were staying with their teacher. However, upon arrival, she learned that the couple she travelled with had sold her and she was forced to marry a Chinese man. When she was able to escape, she ran to the Chinese police, they helped her return home but were unable to catch her traffickers.

I was the breadwinner of my family—I took care of my mother and I had to look after her. So, to live in the IDP camp—the place is too small, and everything is difficult. So, one of my friends told me, “In China there are jobs and good salaries. Every month you can get 4,000 to 5,000 yuan [$640 to $800].

In the village, there more people who are poor, and only Chinese from Myanmar have satellite, the have the dish.

I knew that China is a good place.

[…]

When I talked about my experience to others, they got a shock. They felt sorry for me. I felt quite painful about the experiences and events. I had to take medicine to recover.

[Moon Ja escaped and ran to the Chinese police]

They asked me the ID number of the broker – I didn’t know. So they asked me, ‘Where does she live?’ The police said if we do not know the address or ID card number then it’s too difficult – no follow up.

Narrative provided by Human Rights Watch in their report “Give Us a Baby and We’ll Let You Go”: Trafficking of Kachin “Brides” from Myanmar to China

Country

Theme

Forced marriage

Type

Narrative

Tags

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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