VietNamNet Bridge - Nearly 100 H’mong girls in Pho village, Bac Ha district, Lao Cai province have mysteriously disappeared. It is suspected that they were trafficked to China. Even children of local officials also went missing.




The chief police of Pho village, Mr. Ly Sao Plau said according to the H’mong people’s custom, after three days of seeing each other, if a man likes a woman, he will ask his parents to go to the girl’s family to offer marriage. But many families have reported about their daughters missing after their weddings.

"We have mobilized forces and coordinated with functional agencies to search for these girls but we could not find out where they are. We do not have information about the grooms," Mr. Plau said.

Since early 2010, the village has had more than 30 women who were suspected to be deceived and trafficked to China as prostitutes. The price for a girl is about VND10-15 million ($500-700). Pretty girls are sold at a higher price.

However, it is a strange thing that although the local government has warned local people of the tricks of human traffickers, the village still has many missing women. Sometimes up to five girls went missing in a single month.

According to investigators, human traffickers usually see girls on the fields and at fairs to seduce them. They describe about a good life in China and urge girls to go to China with them to get married with rich men. They also find women who have conflict with their husbands and incite them to leave their husbands to China. For pretty girls, they hire marriage brokers to cheat their families by faked weddings.

Mr. Ma Seo Din has a daughter named Mai Thi Do who went missing since 2007. Do, born in 1982, was on her way home from a fair when a strange man offered a ride and then took her away. Her two children now live with their father.

"That year, the kids cried and refused to eat. They just asked for their mum. In this small village, many children lost their mothers," said Din.

Of the nearly 100 missing women in this village since 2008, over half of them are illiterate or just finished the primary school. Some of them have returned but are in depleted health.

Compiled by Son Ha