Lao authorities stopped three young women from boarding a flight from Vientiane’s international airport to China and detained two others suspected of human trafficking, a police officer told Radio Free Asia.
Investigators believe the young women were traveling to China to marry Chinese men, according to the officer, who asked for anonymity for security reasons. They were accompanied by two Lao women who had acted as procurers in the arrangement, he said.
“This was most likely for sham marriages,” he said on Friday.
The news of the rescue came as the government announced that a total of 107 human trafficking victims -– including 59 under the age of 18 -– were rescued in 2024.
The figures were announced Monday by the Lao National Committee of Anti-Human Trafficking, which also said that 122 people were arrested on trafficking charges last year, about half of whom were from Vietnam or China.
Human trafficking is rife in Laos and other Southeast Asia countries where people who live in poverty and are desperate for work are easy targets for traffickers. They are promised well-paid jobs, then forced into servitude or sold to others as slaves. Many are subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
Money for middlemen
Additionally, arranged marriages between Chinese men and young Lao women have become more common in recent years as the women and their families seek financial security amid Laos’ bleak economy.
A middleman is usually involved in forming an agreement. The men pay around 200,000 Chinese yuan (about US$27,500) to middlemen for each girl or young woman, according to a Lao anti-human trafficking activist who goes by the name Ms. Dee.
The young women and their families receive at most 30,000 yuan (US$4,150) while the middlemen take the rest, she said.
“After being sent to China, the Lao girls of course expect to receive some money that they can send home to support their families. But in fact, their Chinese husbands refuse,” Ms. Dee said.
In other trafficking cases, Lao women and girls are brought to China to be surrogate mothers.
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The three women rescued at the airport last week were from poor families, the police officer said. The case remains under investigation, he said.
Last May, three Lao procurers in Xiengkhouang province were sentenced to jail time for illegally providing Lao girls to Chinese men.
In August, Lao anti-trafficking police announced that they had rescued eight Lao youth and had arrested two Chinese nationals and one Laotian on trafficking charges in northern Luang Namtha province.
Traffickers told the youths they could make up to 10 million kip (US$450) a month working in restaurants, but later forced them to perform sex acts with each other live online and paid them 200,000 kip (US$9) per act, an officer told RFA last year.
Translated by Khamsao Civilize. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.