Political Challenges Facing China

Trafficking in persons:

current situation: China is a source, transit, and destination country for women, men, and children trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. The majority of trafficking in China is internal, but there is also international trafficking of Chinese citizens. Women are lured through false promises of legitimate employment into commercial sexual exploitation in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan. Chinese men and women are smuggled to countries throughout the world at enormous personal expense and then forced into commercial sexual exploitation or exploitative labor to repay debts to traffickers. Women and children are trafficked into China from Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam for forced labor, marriage, and sexual slavery. Most North Koreans enter northeastern China voluntarily, but others reportedly are trafficked into China from North Korea.

Domestic trafficking remains the most significant problem in China, with an estimated minimum of 10,000-20,000 victims trafficked each year. The actual number of victims could be much greater. Some experts believe that the serious and prolonged imbalance in the male-female birth ratio may now be contributing to Chinese and foreign girls and women being trafficked as potential brides.

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List – China failed to show evidence of increasing efforts to address transnational trafficking. While the government provides reasonable protection to internal victims of trafficking, protection for Chinese and foreign victims of transnational

trafficking remains inadequate.

Illicit drugs:

China is a major transshipment point for heroin produced in the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia. The nation suffers from a growing domestic drug abuse problem, and is the source country for chemical precursors (that precede more stable drug compounds), despite new regulations on its large chemical industry.