国家地理:China's Lost Girls 被抛弃的女孩 -5

Chinese officials now say that the gender 1 imbalance poses a major threat to China and could trigger crimes like prostitution, forced marriages and abductions of women. These crimes have already begun.

Zhu Wenguang is a private detective who earns his living by rescuing women who've been kidnapped. He says he's rescued about 100 women in the past decade.

"So what, what are all these things here? Showing me."
"These are all files related to those kidnapped women."

Families go to him for help after their daughters have been kidnapped and sold as wives to men in other provinces.

"Mr. Zhu, I have a map of China. I wonder if you could just show me where the most women are being kidnapped."
"I've been to almost every province except Tibet to rescue abducted 2 women. I am really sympathetic for their sad and bitter experience. They are sold to the poorest places and live a miserable 3 life, treated no better than animals. Some of them have broken legs, broken arms. Some of them were beaten black and blue all over the body."

Zhang Chuanli is one of those women. Mr. Zhu rescued her after she'd been kidnapped and taken nearly a thousand miles from her home in Sichuan all the way to Inner Mongolia.
So apparently 4 Ms. Zhang wrote this letter to Mr. Zhu, and asking to be rescued, and this is her file.

"You're kidnapped and sold as a wife? Or, or what happened?"

"I was sold to become somebody's wife. It was very difficult for me. The man treated me very badly and he was sick as well. The rest of the family watched me all the time. When I tried to escape, I was beaten badly. It was terrible. I felt like I wanted to die."

It's not clear how many kidnappings are a result of China's gender imbalance. But experts predict that (if) it gets worse, they'll certainly increase.

"Do you know why your husband had to buy you? Do you know what the reason was?"
"He couldn't find a wife. He was sick and old and needed to find one, for not much money."
"Do you know how much you were sold for?"
"About 3,600 yuan, I was told later by a relative."

3,600 yuan, that's about 435 dollars. Zhangquanli says the man raped 5 her repeatedly and after a year she had his child.
"Where is your son now?"
"The son is still there in Inner Mongolia. When I was rescued, the whole village came out, and surrounded the vehicles and tried to stop us. The police fired shots in the air, and tried to stop the crowd. But it didn't work. They wouldn't let me take the child. We almost didn't get out ourselves."
"Is that difficult to be away from your son now?"
"It's very hard. I'm sad about it, but I couldn't take him with me."

If it wasn't for my mom and dad, I bet I'd still be in the orphan 6, orphanage 7. And I wouldn't be here right now and I wouldn't be living in America. I would just be living in China but and I'll be...