NYT: A Village Grows Rich Off Its Main Export: Its Daughters (China) [View All]

A Village Grows Rich Off Its Main Export: Its Daughters
By HOWARD W. FRENCH

Published: January 3, 2005


...."If you don't go to Thailand and you are a young woman here, what can you do," said Ye Xiang, 20, whose features still had the pudgy look of a teenager's. "You plant and you harvest. But in Thailand and Malaysia, I heard it was pretty easy to earn money, so I went."

At least 20 other young women from this tiny hamlet, which clings to a hillside just off a side road near the Mekong River, have headed off to foreign lands to work in the sex trade. "All of the girls would like to go, but some have to take care of their parents," Ms. Ye said.

In this regard, there is nothing peculiar about Langle, at least nothing peculiar for this part of Yunnan Province, whose women are favorites in the brothel industry from Thailand - whose national language is related to their own dialect - to Singapore.

Experts say that in some local villages a majority of women in their 20's work in this trade, leaving almost no family untouched and the young men without mates. Not long ago, many of the recruits were kidnapped to become modern-day sex slaves, but these days the trade has become largely voluntary....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/international/asia/03china.html?8hpib