Political Economy Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
On May 7th, a man from Henan went to Bangladesh to “get married”. After the wedding ceremony, he encountered an accident, sustaining multiple injuries all over his body, with a severe head injury behind his ear, and ultimately died. Although based on the injury location and circumstances, the cause of death was most likely an attack, due to the lack of any surveillance or witnesses at the scene, Bangladeshi police hastily closed the case after declaring the man “died in a traffic accident.” After this incident, there was little coverage in domestic media until May 25th, when the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh suddenly released an article, without mentioning any causes or details, warning Chinese citizens to “strictly abide by laws and regulations related to foreign-related marriages, stay away from illegal intermediaries, do not trust various short-video platforms promoting cross-border matchmaking and marriage, eliminate the wrong idea of ‘buying foreign wives,’ and be cautious when going to Bangladesh for marriage.” The next day, the man’s family was interviewed by the domestic media outlet Xin Jing Bao, claiming that the man actually died from an assault, which is when the incident became known to the public.
If we only consider “a man from Henan died en route to Bangladesh for marriage,” we cannot determine the nature of this incident. However, a quick look at the contents of the notice from the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh makes it very clear:
"1. According to Chinese law, any matchmaking agency is prohibited from engaging in or disguising involvement in foreign-related marriage introduction services. No individual shall deceive or engage in profit-oriented foreign marriage introduction activities, directly or indirectly. Chinese citizens should stay away from commercial cross-border marriage agencies and avoid falling into online marriage scam traps, to prevent loss of money and freedom. If deceived, report immediately to domestic public security authorities.
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Bangladesh strictly combats human trafficking. Those involved in illegal marriages with Bangladesh may be suspected of trafficking persons and be arrested. According to Bangladesh’s Penal Code and Anti-Human Trafficking Law, those organizing human trafficking face sentences of at least seven years, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty, with fines exceeding 500,000 Taka. Those inciting, planning, executing, or assisting in trafficking face sentences of three to seven years and fines below 20,000 Taka.
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The judicial process in Bangladesh is lengthy. If suspected of trafficking, arrest and court proceedings can take months or even years, severely affecting family reunions and future life."
Although the Chinese Embassy’s notice attempts to obscure the facts—failing to mention that the man died due to “marriage” and warning about “online marriage scams”—the subsequent mention of “Bangladesh’s strict crackdown on human trafficking” and “suspected trafficking taking months or years” clearly indicates the true nature of the so-called “marriage”—which is an extremely barbaric form of human trafficking punishable even in Bangladesh, a colonial country. Men traveling to Bangladesh for marriage pay a bride price and bring back a woman they have never met, with no prior contact. Ask yourself, can such a relationship have any genuine emotional foundation? Undoubtedly, the so-called “cross-border marriage” is just a disguised form of human trafficking. The death of the man in this incident proves this point. According to reports, this man was not visiting Bangladesh for the first time; he had previously traveled there twice, attempting to “marry,” but was scammed out of large sums of money by intermediaries. Yet, he was still eager to buy a cheap “living asset,” raising funds to go to Bangladesh again to commit crimes, even completing a wedding ceremony—only to die in the end. During subsequent investigations, Bangladeshi police found that the man’s belongings were not lost, only his phone. If he did not die in a traffic accident, it is highly likely he was killed not because of theft but because of his reckless behavior, which provoked the local Bangladeshi community to take justice into their own hands. Our assessment of his fate can only be: good riddance!
What is even more disgusting than the man’s behavior is the attitude of the Chinese government. A Bangladeshi woman who does not speak Chinese and has never left her country is brought into China by a single man from China—this is the clearest evidence of human trafficking. Yet, in the face of such heinous crimes, the Chinese regime, which claims to “resolutely oppose human trafficking and strictly crack down on such crimes through law,” neither condemns these traffickers nor takes effective action. Instead, it adopts a “neutral” stance, claiming that people “must abide by local laws,” “eliminate wrong ideas,” and that such behavior “is considered human trafficking in Bangladesh.” Since Bangladesh is a country separated from China by the Himalayas and the Trans-Himalayan mountain range, with no land border, entry is almost exclusively via air or sea, and must pass through China’s strict customs. This means that if China wanted to stop such trafficking, it only needs to check the documents of both parties and understand the situation—making enforcement nearly effortless. China’s demand for “caution in marriage” is nothing but a thinly veiled warning: you can sell women from Bangladesh back to China, but be careful not to lose your money or your life!
In fact, China itself is the biggest supporter and backing behind this human trafficking. It fully condones online propaganda promoting “cross-border marriage” and human trafficking to Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian countries. Search for “Bangladesh girl” or “Bangladesh bride” on platforms like Bilibili or Xiaohongshu, and you’ll see countless videos from intermediaries advertising “Bangladesh girls like Chinese uncles, want to come to China to live,” which is utterly disgusting. On Weibo, many top influencers have entered impoverished Bangladeshi slums to spread rumors claiming “Bangladesh girls like Chinese people,” engaging in activities no different from human trafficking advertisements. If China exerted just a fraction of the effort it uses to suppress dissent online, such rampant trafficking would not be possible. The current scale of cross-border human trafficking is entirely the result of the Chinese regime’s counterrevolutionary and evil purposes.
As a country with a particularly rampant Confucian-capitalist patriarchal ideology, and under an extremely barbaric fascist dictatorship, China has a unique feature—an extremely unbalanced gender ratio. During the process of China’s capitalist restoration, the revival of rural private ownership was the earliest step, causing the status of rural women to decline rapidly. Although Chinese law grants adult women equal rights to land ownership as men, in reality, these rights are hardly protected. If a woman marries and moves to another area, her land is usually reclaimed by the local “village collective.” Moreover, many women are not treated equally in land division from the start; they are often not allocated enough land, unlike men. [1] According to a 2005 survey by the All-China Women’s Federation of 202 counties and 1212 villages in 30 provinces, among those without land, women accounted for 70%. 26.3% of women have never received land, 43.8% lost land due to marriage, and 0.7% lost land after divorce. [2] This reality means that rural women in China generally lose their means of production after marriage and have no inheritance rights, which under private ownership society, results in extremely low social status for women, especially rural women. During China’s over 30-year family planning policy, the nationwide enforcement of a one-child policy, combined with the lack of inheritance rights for women, led to widespread infanticide of female infants, even killing them outright, causing a rare and enormous disaster worldwide, and severely distorting China’s gender ratio. The seventh national census shows that among men aged 20-40, there are 17.52 million more than women; in rural areas, the gender imbalance is even more severe, with a ratio of nearly 2:1 for unmarried men and women. After long-term polarization, most young and middle-aged rural laborers have left for the cities due to economic hardship or bankruptcy, leaving behind a portion of the elderly, children, and some small business owners and wealthy farmers—mainly the upper middle class of small asset owners, living a basic self-sufficient life with private property. Although this small bourgeoisie remains large, worsening economic conditions threaten their livelihoods, pushing many toward bankruptcy. Meanwhile, due to various reasons, the number of women of marriageable age has significantly decreased during the family planning enforcement, and many women, recognizing the widespread moral corruption among men and their unscrupulous motives, choose not to marry or to marry late. As a result, rural men of marriageable age often find it difficult to find a family wife. The increasing economic hardship, coupled with the inability to oppress a family slave, has led these men to become increasingly dissatisfied with the Chinese regime, becoming a “unstable factor” threatening stability. For the Chinese regime, allowing “cross-border marriage” is also a way to co-opt and divide the upper middle class of rural small asset owners. The regime is well aware that as long as dissatisfied men can obtain a wife—who in private households is essentially a sex tool and reproductive machine—they will have someone to oppress, and even if life is hard, they can still have a family slave to serve them, maintaining social stability. If they have children, they only need to force them to study, and even if they cannot “rise to prominence” in the future, they can “age with dignity.” This way, a large part of the discontent in Chinese society, even if not completely eliminated, will be reduced to verbal complaints, and this upper middle class will no longer oppose the regime. This is the reason why the Chinese regime supports the so-called “cross-border marriage.” In fact, “cross-border marriage” is not a new phenomenon in China; over a decade ago, it already involved human trafficking chains targeting Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. As early as 2015, Xinhua News Agency published an article mentioning that in 2010, the number of “Vietnamese brides” in China exceeded 100,000. Even then, Vietnam alone had such a number fifteen years ago. Now, with other countries included, the number of women trafficked into China is even greater!
The reason Bangladesh has also become a new target for human traffickers is equally related to China. Bangladesh only gained independence in the 1970s, long under colonial oppression, and was heavily damaged during its war of independence. Its capitalist development is very backward. Even today, Bangladesh’s industry remains underdeveloped, with the textile industry being the most advanced, characterized by low organizational efficiency, long social necessary labor time for commodities, and high commodity value. In contrast, China, as a developed imperialist country, has higher labor productivity, shorter social necessary labor time, and lower commodity value. Even if Chinese-made goods are exported overseas to Bangladesh at prices equal to or slightly lower than local products, they can still generate surplus value and earn huge profits. As a result, Bangladeshi locally produced goods cannot compete with the quality and price of Chinese exports and have become a major dumping ground for Chinese products. In 2024, China-Bangladesh bilateral trade in goods reached $24.051 billion, with Chinese exports to Bangladesh totaling $22.884 billion, while imports from Bangladesh were only $1.167 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $21.717 billion—almost two-thirds of Bangladesh’s trade deficit! Meanwhile, the comprador bourgeoisie in Bangladesh is engaged in reckless sellout activities. This May, the Bangladeshi government even planned to establish a China-exclusive economic zone in Chittagong, allocating land to Chinese enterprises and implementing tax reduction policies. It is easy to see that under China’s enormous export volume and the reactionary rule of the comprador bourgeoisie, Bangladesh’s underdeveloped national bourgeoisie, with outdated technology and small capital, cannot compete with Chinese goods and will inevitably go bankrupt under such dumping, severely damaging Bangladesh’s national industry and causing even greater unemployment among workers. According to Al Jazeera, over 32 million of Bangladesh’s 170 million population are unemployed or out of school, with 2.59 million unemployed just in the first quarter of 2024.
It is obvious that under the conditions of capitalism’s underdevelopment and such a large unemployed population, how many women in Bangladesh can find jobs and achieve independence? Because women need to bear children and have menstrual periods, even if they undertake heavy household chores, capitalists regard them as inferior labor commodities, making employment even more difficult than for men. In Bangladesh, female labor participation rate is only 36.26%, less than half of men’s 81.37%, far below the participation rate of women in imperialist countries (World Bank statistics show China’s female labor participation rate was 61% in 2022). Of course, their social status is even lower than women in imperialist countries like China. In capitalist society, “only work that produces surplus value and creates capital profit is considered productive”[3], and Bangladeshi women, being widely excluded from social labor, mostly work within their families. Their domestic labor is not recognized by society, and their social status is not acknowledged (in Bangladesh, women even have to pay a bride price when marrying into the husband’s family). As a result, Bangladeshi women have almost no personal freedom and are forced to be at the mercy of their families. Many receive no education at all and are married off before age 14. It is clear that the fabricated claims by Chinese traffickers that “Bangladesh girls like Chinese” are complete nonsense. Women are sold to China mainly because their families are driven by greed, accepting traffickers’ bribes and being deceived by lies like “high wages in China,” with no real choice over their marriage.
Some may argue that since China’s material conditions are significantly better than Bangladesh, Bangladeshi women who marry into China can at least improve their material lives. Is this really true? In fact, this is complete nonsense. Since human trafficking of Bangladeshi women in China has only recently emerged and due to deliberate concealment by China, there are no detailed investigations into the living conditions of trafficked Bangladeshi women. However, by examining Southeast Asian countries with similar political and economic conditions, such as Myanmar and Vietnam, we can understand how miserable the lives of trafficked Bangladeshi women are. Take Myanmar as an example: due to long-term civil war, many women are displaced and unemployed. Many are deceived by traffickers with promises of “high-paying cross-border jobs,” drugged during transit, and sold for between $3,000 and $13,000. When they wake up, they are locked in rooms, repeatedly raped by buyers, and forced to work in their homes or fields—completely reduced to the reproductive tools and sex slaves of the most immoral and barbaric Chinese traffickers! [4] Compared to trafficked women in Myanmar and Vietnam, the only difference with Bangladeshi women is that the latter have no hope of escaping via land routes due to Bangladesh’s geographical separation from China, and are entirely doomed to remain in captivity.
China’s barbaric Confucian culture and fascist dictatorship hinder its own women’s struggle for liberation, while its capital and export of commodities create poverty in Bangladesh and South Asia, obstructing the development of national capitalism in Bangladesh, and bringing disaster to Bangladeshi women. It is the main culprit and behind-the-scenes force of the current “cross-border marriage” human trafficking activity, bringing lifelong suffering to hundreds of thousands of women trafficked to China from Southeast and South Asia, and causing ongoing disasters to hundreds of millions of Chinese women and all laborers across China and Asia. For the Bangladeshi people, ending human trafficking depends on eliminating their traitorous sellouts and expelling foreign economic invaders. For us Chinese revolutionaries, our task is to overthrow this human trafficking mastermind, ensuring that the disasters of trafficking and the gender inequality and class oppression that cause them never recur.
Anhui University China Rural Revitalization Research Institute: “Research Report on Land Rights of Rural Women in China (Part Two)”: Some local “village rules and customs” explicitly discriminate against women’s rights. According to the report, Xu Xiaolan, a female villager from Sanliu Village, Tianchi Town, Lezhi County, married a local public school teacher Zhang in 1998 and has lived in her original hometown since. However, the traditional custom of “marrying out” women and “marrying in” men has become a village rule, which forcibly retracted her household registration when she married out. Xu Xiaolan’s two-year-old child was also affected and had no land. Without income, Xu Xiaolan sought help from the town government, county committee, and other departments, but the problem was difficult to resolve… In limited financial circumstances, boys’ educational rights are prioritized over girls’. Many rural girls are regarded as temporary family members; once married, they no longer enjoy rights related to their natal land and can only rely on their husband’s family for property and inheritance, placing women in a dependent position within their husband’s family. ↩︎
Same source as above ↩︎
Rosa Luxemburg, “Women’s Suffrage and Class Struggle” ↩︎
In 2011, the Myanmar women Seng Meng and her family fled from Kachin State to refugee camps to escape war. In 2014, 16-year-old Seng Meng was promoted to fifth grade. Her sister-in-law told her she could find a cook job in nearby Yunnan Province, China. Seng Meng was reluctant, but the job prospects in the refugee camp were too low, so her family decided to let her seize the opportunity. On the way, her sister-in-law gave her something to eat, claiming it was motion sickness medicine. After eating, Seng Meng fell asleep. When she woke up, she found her hands tied behind her back. “I shouted loudly, hoping someone would rescue me,” she said. “By then, I was already inside China. My sister-in-law left me at a Chinese family’s house. A few months later, she came back and told me, ‘You need to marry a Chinese man,’ and took me to another family. I was left in their house. They took me to a room. After entering, I was tied up again. They locked the door—about a month or two. The Chinese man would come to deliver food and then rape me… After two months, they took me out of the room. The father of the Chinese man said, ‘This is your husband. You are now a couple. Respect each other and build a harmonious family.’ Her ‘husband’ was still violent. Seven months later, Seng Meng was pregnant with a boy. After giving birth, she asked to return home. Her husband replied, ‘No one stops you. You can go back, but the child must stay.’ Seng Meng tried to escape with the child. After being trafficked to China for two years, she met a Kachin woman at a market who gave her 1,000 yuan to help her escape back to Myanmar.” Source: Human Rights Watch report ↩︎
