Myanmar’s military courts have sentenced 12 individuals, including five Chinese nationals, to life imprisonment for their involvement in a series of human trafficking cases, state media reported on Saturday.
According to the Myanma Alinn newspaper, the convictions cover a wide range of offenses including the production and online distribution of sex videos and the trafficking of Myanmar women into forced marriages in China.
In one case heard in Yangon on July 29, two Chinese nationals, Lin Te and Wang Xiaofeng, were among five people sentenced to life in prison for filming sex videos involving three Myanmar couples and profiting from their online circulation. The group was convicted under Myanmar’s Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law.
In a separate ruling, the same court handed life sentences to three Chinese men, Yibo, Cao Qiu Quan and Chen Huan, alongside a Myanmar woman, for attempting to smuggle two Myanmar women, recently married to two of the convicted Chinese nationals, into China.
Another military court sentenced three more individuals to life for selling a woman as a bride in China and attempting to traffic a second.
Separately, a woman from the Magway region received a 10-year prison term on July 30 for planning to sell two Myanmar women into forced marriages in China.
The crackdown comes amid persistent concerns over the trafficking of women and girls from conflict ridden regions of Myanmar. The country has remained in turmoil since the military coup in February 2021, with civil conflict driving widespread displacement and vulnerability.
A 2018 study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) estimated that 21,000 women and girls from northern Myanmar were trafficked into marriages in China between 2013 and 2017.
While COVID-19 and border restrictions initially slowed trafficking reports, KWAT warned of a resurgence in 2024 as more people migrate to China seeking work. Authorities have documented 80 trafficking cases so far this year, 34 involving cross border elements linked to China.
BBC Southeast Asia Bureau
