{"id":1609167,"date":"2024-04-14T02:15:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T02:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/laos\/hmong-wives-middlemen-04122024151601.html"},"modified":"2024-04-14T02:15:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T02:15:28","slug":"viral-video-highlights-targeting-of-hmong-women-to-marry-chinese-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/14\/viral-video-highlights-targeting-of-hmong-women-to-marry-chinese-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral video highlights targeting of Hmong women to marry Chinese men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

The man behind the phone chuckles as he calls out in the Hmong language to villagers sitting around a raised wooden home in rural Laos.<\/span><\/p>\n

A young man in a yellow hooded sweatshirt offers a slightly embarrassed smile, while other men gathered around a motorbike appear to pay him no mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

The camera zooms in on two young women who look shocked or turn away, as others laugh, before it settles on a girl barely in her teens, sitting atop a bike between two other children.<\/span><\/p>\n

This 30-second video, shot in an undisclosed location in Laos, went viral late last month after it was posted to Facebook, along with dialogue warning of ethnic Hmong middlemen working as interpreters for Chinese nationals seeking Hmong women and girls as wives.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the offer of marriage can be a financial leg up for largely poor Hmong villagers in rural Laos, many women who accept end up victims of human trafficking, according to a Lao official, who is calling on authorities to take action against the middlemen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the women end up as forced laborers and sometimes face physical punishment, the official said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the video, the middleman goes to a village and says that there are some Chinese men looking for Lao Hmong girls and women to be their wives,\u201d a speaker of the Hmong language told Radio Free Asia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe video doesn\u2019t mention the province, district, or village,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s only clear that Chinese men are looking for Lao Hmong wives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ENG_LAO_HmongMiddlemen_04022024.2.jpg\"\n
A Lao Hmong middleman assists Chinese middlemen looking for Lao Hmong girls and women to marry Chinese men, March 24, 2024 in Laos. (Citizen journalist)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The women and girls typically live in remote hill areas and are usually uneducated, according to an official from the Lao People\u2019s Revolutionary Youth Union, the ruling party\u2019s youth wing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs I observe, some of the men cannot marry Chinese women because they are poor,\u201d the youth official said. \u201cBut when they come to Laos, they\u2019re in a better position in terms of wealth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Loopholes in Laos\u2019 laws<\/b><\/p>\n

The Chinese men offer the parents large amounts of money or promise to build a modern cement house, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And they mostly target the Lao women in their early 20s, with fair skin and a small body, a source in Vientiane province\u2019s Thoulakhom district told RFA.<\/span><\/p>\n

The influx of Chinese people into Laos in the last few years has presented new challenges to the Lao government\u2019s anti-human trafficking efforts, according to several government officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the Chinese men obtain all of the required Lao government documents before marrying Hmong women, one Vientiane-based official told RFA. That can make it more difficult for provincial authorities to gauge whether the women will face an abusive situation once they move to China, the official said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some loopholes in Lao regulations and laws for the Chinese men to take advantage to bring Lao girls and women to China,\u201d the official said. \u201cWe only know their whereabouts once they face problems and are in a situation where they need help. But we can\u2019t stop them from going to China with their new husbands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was unclear how many Hmong women have moved to China to marry Chinese men in recent years. But Lao government officials and one person who works for an NGO said the practice has become commonplace in the country\u2019s north, particularly in Luang Prabang and Oudomxay provinces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just saw this happen earlier this year,\u201d a resident of Xayabury province\u2019s Hongsa district told RFA. \u201cA middleman who works for Chinese men came here to negotiate with parents of Hmong women. When the parents said yes, he did all the paperwork according to regulations and laws on marriage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In every instance, the Hmong women and the Chinese men didn\u2019t meet each other until after the paperwork was completed, he said. Because of that, the village doesn\u2019t hold an engagement ceremony, like with other marriages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \n \n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia<\/a> and was authored by By RFA Lao.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of the young women who accept the marriage offers end up victims of human trafficking in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2242,43029,42620,73443,44902,61890,27395,785,27149,27150,21489,162,6510,3113],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1609184,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609167\/revisions\/1609184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}