Vietnamese police arrest man who sold woman in China

A 26-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested for allegedly tricking and selling a 27-year-old woman to a Chinese man in Yunnan Province.

According to police, Chang Mi Ly was approached by a Chinese acquaintance whose relative was looking for a wife and was willing to pay the equivalent of US$435, VN Express reported.

Ly reportedly tricked a 27-year-old woman from a neighboring district by promising her a job in China. The woman was rescued in September and exposed Ly after arriving back in Vietnam.

In 2017, about 670 cases of human trafficking were reported in Vietnam – a figure was already half of that recorded the year before – 1,128 cases. Uneducated women and poor children were often targeted and sold to men in South Korea, Malaysia and China who were seeking wives, child-bearers or prostitutes.

Social networks such as Facebook and Vietnam’s primary messaging app Zalo are often deployed to approach victims. Authorities say negligence and neighboring countries’ gender imbalances were primarily responsible for human trafficking cases.