Brickbat: Looking the Other Way

Activists and senior government officials say the Pakistani government is pressuring law enforcement and the media not to investigate the trafficking of Christian girls and women to China. The families of the women sell them to what they believe are Chinese husbands, but many of the women say that once they arrived in China they were abused or forced into prostitution. Human rights workers say the government is trying to keep trafficking secret in order not to jeopardize ties with China.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The families of the women sell them to what they believe are Chinese husbands, but many of the women say that once they arrived in China they were abused or forced into prostitution.

I'm not sure I'm seeing much of a difference.

[Cyto]

China buying wives....

That's not a consequence I saw coming, but now that you mention it, I suppose it is obvious.

China's once child policy has left China with a surplus of men due to sex selective abortions and second child choices specific to having a son. The skew is only a few percent, but over a billion people it adds up to millions of men who cannot find mates.

People have talked about this in terms of the potential for war, but I suppose a market has been created for the importation of wives, as in any other supply/demand situation.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

Government policy not achieving the intended goal. Wow.

[Bubba Jones]

I think this has been well documented for years. Something like 100M extra men and lots of imports from North Korea.

[Cyto]

Is this unique to Christian girls?

It seems that I've seen other articles about young women from Pakistan being shipped off to places like the UAE and Saudi Arabia to work as maids and in other service industries but ending up as little more than chattel or being forced into prostitution.

Is there something specific to Pakistan that breeds these stories? It is starting to have a theme... and the common element is Pakistani youth as the victims of some sort of trafficking scheme.

[Inigo Montoya]

Saudis and people from UAE have a reputation for mostly not working because they are very wealthy and feel work is beneath them. Apparently there are exceptions among those who either proudly add their work to an existing family business, some motivated professionals such as scientists and doctors, and a few friends entrepreneurs. For the most part though, showing up at the same place each day to do tasks doesn’t interest them.

Since plenty of jobs, from menial to professional, still need to get done, however, they love to import foreign workers. Obviously Muslim ones are preferred, so they bring in plenty of Pakistanis, Palestinians, etc. It’s not surprising that some of these “servants,” especially those in menial roles and/or female, get mistreated and abused.

[Inigo Montoya]

*fervent entrepreneurs* not friends

[Longtobefree]

That's what you get when failed journalists learn to code, but not very well. Then they get assigned to make a minor change to the spell checker.

[MoreFreedom]

Seems Pakistani politicians are being paid off by Chinese business interests, which are typically politicians in China, at the expense of Pakistani families and those sold into sexual slavery. Why else would they pressure "law enforcement and the media not to investigate" human trafficking? Those payments are the "ties with China" they don't want stopped.

Come to think of it, it's kind of like the Chinese payments to Hunter Biden and Mitch McConnell's family, but they just sold out US taxpayers rather than sending over some sex slaves.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

While this sounds slightly more likely than the run-of-the-mill “Our third tier city is a major hub for Human Trafficking” story, I want a little more investigation. Too much of the Human Trafficking Narrative is recycled bull dung leftover form the Late Victorian White Slavery panic(s), and FAR too much is repeated as news by sources that usually know better.

Also, not entirely sure it’s any of out goddamned business, even if it IS true. Either we are going to dictate how people in other societies behave to others, in which case it would be simpler all ‘round to just go back to Colonialism, or we aren’t. How people behave to US is our business. How people behave to each-other when we aren’t involved, ain’t. Unless we’re going to run their countries, for which we lack the temperament and skills.

[Halykan]

I agree that it's not in any way a national interest of the US, and our government should stay out of it unless it crosses our borders at some point. But Americans might find it of interest, so they know what NGOs are working on it, who to send donations to, and who to censure or boycott. So it definitely seems newsworthy - if it's true. The moral panic in the US has soured me on these stories a bit, but I'll readily admit this one sounds more plausible.