Chinese Police Probe Mass Kidnappings of Vietnamese Women (culture, girls, dating)

[ejay1]

Chinese Police Probe Mass Kidnappings of Vietnamese Women
Posted August 21st, 2011 at 1:35 pm (UTC-5)
Official Chinese media say police are probing the suspected abduction of about 100 ethnic Vietnamese women who are missing in central China and may have been sold as brides to Chinese men.

The China Daily describes the women as already married to Chinese men and said they were living in remote villages in Hunan province before disappearing. The report says the probe was launched after two husbands received phone calls demanding they pay ransom to gain release of their wives, or see them sold.

The report did not say when the women disappeared.

But one of the complaining husbands is himself reported to have paid about $5,700 for his Vietnamese bride in 2008.

News of the probe comes as state-controlled media continue to issue warnings about a looming gender crisis, with a severe shortage of Chinese women. Western analysts attribute the crisis in large part to decades of Chinese law mandating one child per family in a culture that values boys more than girls.

The Xinhua news agency, in a lengthy report last week, linked the gender imbalance to sex-selective abortions, and even female infanticide. Xinhua published a warning that millions of Chinese men of marrying age may be, in its words, “living as frustrated bachelors by 2020, due to gender imbalance.”

The agency, quoting 2010 census figures, says there are currently 118 boys for every 100 girls in China, forcing rural men to resort to mercenary marriages in which women are sold and forced to wed.