'Brides' trafficked from Vietnam rescued by police

Police in Yunnan province have rescued 17 Vietnamese women after an eight-month investigation into a cross-border human trafficking network.

Sixteen of the victims have been safely repatriated while the other woman, who is pregnant, has asked to remain in China, according to the Kaiyuan railway police.

The women were all abducted in Vietnam before being trafficked to China and sold as brides in seven Chinese provinces, including Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Jiangsu and Guangdong, for up to 100,000 yuan ($15,870) per victim.

Police have detained 60 people and said the network was led by two Vietnamese suspects, surnamed Pham and Dao, and two Chinese suspects, surnamed Ma and Li.

The network was first exposed at a railway station in Yunnan's Hekou Yao autonomous county on Feb 7, 2017, when a police officer stopped two passengers, a man and a woman, with tickets that did not match their ID card numbers.

Police later found out the man, surnamed Zhang from Anhui province, had paid 57,000 yuan to "buy" the Vietnamese woman in Hekou.

Four other people were also discovered at the station, including another Vietnamese "bride", the man who had paid for her, and two suspected brokers.

After an initial investigation, Kaiyuan railway police detained Pham the next day. Pham is accused of abducting five Vietnamese women and trafficking them to Henan province between September and December 2016.

The authorities suspected they had uncovered a cross-border human trafficking network, with suspects and victims scattered over Vietnam and China, and set up a task force to crack open the case.

Investigations were conducted in Anhui, Jiangxi and Henan provinces, and the network was uncovered after an eight-month operation, according to police.

China and Vietnam have been working together to fight human trafficking for years. In 2016, the two countries cracked 184 cases in joint anti-trafficking operations, detaining 290 suspects and rescuing 207 Vietnamese women and one child, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said in July.

China has signed intergovernmental anti-trafficking agreements with Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, and has set up eight liaison offices along the borders with these countries.