A Look into the Issue of Child Brides in Putian City, Fujian Province

• Author: Zhang Jing

Putian is located in the center of Fujian’s coastal region, with a population of 3,069,700. Here, the numbers of child brides have been estimated to be around 120,000. During the1980s when human trafficking was more rampant, the number of child brides sold neared 600,000.

The Website ‘Huijia’ (Chinese for “return home”, http://www.huijiawang.org/) has helped three child brides in Putian find their families in Guizhou province between 2009 and 2011. In October 2010, some hundred Putian girls, who had organized a group in Changle city dedicated to reuniting families, held an event called ‘My Mother and Father, Where Are You?’ to help more girls reunite with their loved ones. Changle city is known for being a transportation hub for human trafficking. Child brides that are currently both wives and mothers are using all means necessary to find their birth parents. A website which dedicated to reuniting child brides in the Putian area with their parents has already reported more than 800 registered users.

Pinyang village of Donghai township, which is thirty kilometers from the Putian downtown area, is a village of only 4,300 residents, but has nearly a thousand child brides, earning it the infamous name of “Child Bride Village.” At least one fifth of the over 16,000 households that make up the Beigao township have had a child bride, bringing the total number of child brides in Beigao to 3,200.

The main factors...