The Sinner(s)

(Jennifer’s note. This article was translated by me from the Chinese version at https://www.jenniferzengblog.com/home/sinner-woman-trafficking-chinese. The author of the article Lao Fu is the director of the Social Security Center of Xi’an Bureau. He was once the train section chief, this article is completely true, not fiction. )

Recently the event of the mother of eight in Feng County, Xuzhou City has become very hot on the internet. This reminded me of the event that happened 30 years ago at a train station near Xuzhou. Local villagers fought for a female graduate student who was trafficked. At that time, I was working in the Baoji to Lianyungang train fleet.

Click to watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36b5Z2M6TOM

That day I worked as an assistant staff member and was responsible for reversing the train at the cross-section at the station. Station head Hou was together with me. We were chatting in the soft seat waiting room.

Within the railroad system, staff members at the station and on the train are a family. If they have good relationships, staff on the train let the station staff help to buy things, cadres can take a rest at the soft seat waiting room. When someone needs to deal with an accident, others can make arrangements for food and accommodation …… staff at the station can send people to the train, get them a sleeper ticket, especially for key passengers such as local party and government leaders, higher leaders, connections, etc. They request in advance. Staff on the train will keep a space at the soft sleeping car, set up a fruit plate, arrange for dinner, etc. So everyone feels convenient and good.

We were chatting happily and suddenly heard some loud noises outside. Director Hou frowned, stood up, and muttered: “Here we go again.” He turned to me and said: “Sorry, I’ll go handle this first.” I also followed him out.

Outside the door stood a large crowd of farmers. Some of them carried a stiff, some a shovel, and one even carried a pig-killing knife. He still wore a bloody apron. Apparently, he just rushed there directly from a pig slaughterhouse.

Director Hou yelled at the ticket inspector Wang with a stern face: “How can you let in so many people?” Wang said with a wronged expression on his face: “These people said they are from your village, and directly rushed in.”

Director Hou yelled and pushed through the crowd and came to the middle. Sitting on the ground was a young woman sitting paralyzed in the arms of a middle-aged woman wearing glasses. He was about to ask about the situation when a strong man slapped him and said: “What are you looking at? San, you are an official at the station, but Maodan’s wife was snatched away.”

Director Hou looked up with a bewildered face and said: “Brother Ji, who snatched her?”

“It is them,” Ji pointed to the two police officers in front of him, and a man with a duck-tongued hat svelte.

Director Hou said to the two police officers, “Who are you?”

The police officers took a step forward and said: “We are from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, these two are Professor Mo and Professor Wu of the Institute of Chemistry. Their daughter Mo Hua, a graduate student, came here five years ago for a study tour and was abducted and sold. We are here to rescue her.” Then he pulled out his ID and asked, “Are you the station chief?”

Director Hou said, “I am not the station chief, today both the station chief, and party secretary went to a meeting. I am in charge now.”

“Well, please assist us in rescuing the abducted women.”

“Oh, I know.” Director Hou took a long breath.

Later he told me, in fact, he knew what was going on as soon as he went there. Such things happened there all the time. He called Maodan’s wife sister-in-law. He knew she was trafficked. He heard his family talk about it when he went back to his home. But he did not know that she was a graduate student.

Director Hou asked Wang to go and take the police chief at the station here and ask him to bring a few more people. He was afraid that a fight would break out on the platform. If anyone was injured, it would become a big deal, and he would also be held responsible.

Director Hou arranged for the station’s staff to send the mother and daughter sitting on the ground to the passenger duty room. A big, bald middle-aged man with a thick neck rushed over, grabbed Hou director said, “San, I also want to go in to keep an eye on my wife. I spent money (on her).”

While Director Hou was still hesitant, the crowd shouted: “Rush in, do not let them run away.”

Director Hou sighed and said, “Go in there then, but and don’t make a scene, the police have a gun, if you make trouble, they can kill you.” Mao Dan froze for a moment and said, “I won’t make a scene, I won’t make a scene.” Then both Mao Dan and his mother went inside the duty room. Several strong men then blocked the door.

Director Hou then invited the two police officers, Brother Ji, the village head to the soft seat waiting room. He said, “Let’s discuss and work out a solution. Let the rest of them stand on the platform.” There were one or two hundred people there.

In the beginning, no one said anything. Then Brother Ji broke the silence and yelled: “They can’t take her away.”

“Why?”

“Why? They have a marriage certificate, the state recognizes (their marriage).”

The police said: “Marriage should be decided by the person herself. Did she agree to marry?”

“Even it is the case, you can’t take her away. They spent 800 yuan! If you take her away, who can they ask to have their money back?”

The police officer squinted at Brother Ji and said: “ They spent 800 yuan to buy a woman, that is a crime.”

Brother Ji lowered his lip and said: “We have seen a lot of such things here. No one said this is a crime.”

The police said: “You can’t say this thing is not illegal because you have a lot of such things here.”

Brother Ji said: “That money is the bride price, now the whole country is paying a bride price to marry, are all of them breaking the law? If the law is broken, this wife is the one who broke the law seriously.”

The police said, “What law did she break?

“She put her own two children to death with her hands.”

“What evidence do you have?”

“Evidence?” Brother Ji hummed a little and said: “The first child died in a strange way, everyone was puzzled. When the second child was born, the family was on guard. The day when she was trying to suffocate the child, the family rushed in and snatched the child from her hands. The child was still breathing when they snatched it from her hands. But it was not saved at the village health center and died. Later she wanted to kill herself, they tied her up, that’s why she did not die.”

The police listened with a stunned face and said, “We know nothing about what you just said. We are here now rescuing trafficked women. We will have a task force to follow up the investigation. But today we must take her away. If you try to obstruct us, it is obstruction of official business, it is a crime, we will arrest whoever tries to stop us.”

Although the two police officers in Shanghai looked skinny and mild, their expression was very firm.

The village head saw that the negotiation wasn’t going anywhere, and signed to have other village people follow him out of the door. Later they called Mao Dan and his mother over. They muttered and argued for a while. Then Mao Dan and his mother also came into the room.

Everyone sat down again. The village head stood up and said: “You are on official duty, it is not easy (for you). As an organization, in theory, our village should reasonably cooperate, but you should also think about us. We are poor here since ancient times. When the city people can not find a wife, they come to the countryside to find one. In our village, now there are still more than twenty 30 to 40-year-old bachelors. Everyone is buying a wife. It won’t do if you don’t buy one. You won’t have any descendants. This time we can cooperate with you and let you take her away, but you must pay back the money spent by Mao’s family. Mao Dan has to spend money to buy another wife later. He is 42 years old now. If you say no, I will wash my hands of this matter. “

The police still wanted to talk, Director Hou hurriedly pulled them out of the door and said: “This may be the only way that you can take her away today, if you do not spend money, you certainly can not leave today. You should discuss this with her family.”

Two police officers were helpless, and they invited Professor Mo over. Professor Mo shivered with anger after listening to them and said: “My daughter was ruined by them like this, she is dying. And they still want to extort money, where is the justice of Heaven?”

Two police officers cursed with a guilty face: “F**k, there is indeed no justice!”

Director Hou hurriedly said: “If you can’t leave today, I don’t know what else will happen.” Under the persuasion of the crowd, Professor Mo thought twice and finally agreed (to pay money).

Director Hou called the village head, Mao Dan, and his mother over to discuss the price. The police asked how much money was spent at that time. Mao Dan said eight hundred, his mother said, “No, we need three thousand now.”

“Why?” The crowd was stunned.

Mao Dan’s mother said angrily, “Because it costs two thousand yuan to buy a wife now. And in all these years when she was here with us, she only ate, she didn’t work at all. We need at least a thousand for her meals. Three thousand yuan, not a single cent less. Otherwise, I’ll hold her to crash into the train, and die in front of you.”

Professor Mo shivered with anger. Tears flowed down his face. He said: “In all these years, in order to find our daughter, we ran all over the country, spent all the family money, now where can we find so much money?”

At that time, my monthly salary was just over a hundred yuan, three thousand yuan was a big number.

The police asked quietly, “How much do you have on now?” Professor Mo said they had only 1,500 yuan.

Director Hou told the village head the situation. The village head shook his head and said, “I’m afraid this is not enough.”

Director Hou asked him to persuade those people again and said that it was best to negotiate the matter out today.

We then retreated outside the door with the police and waited. They quarreled inside and cursed a lot. In the end, the village head had to slap the table to have everyone quiet down. The village chief grunted, came out, and said: “I can’t do anything else. I can only negotiate this: you pay two thousand yuan, and they won’t ask for meal money. Now they are calling me a traitor. If you agree with this, go get the money quickly. If you don’t agree, I’ll leave.”

The crowd looked at one another (without knowing what to do).

When he heard that they wouldn’t pay enough money, Mao Dan shouted, “Let’s fight!” People on the platform were about to rush into the house to grab the woman ……

I hurriedly let Hou director pull the two police officers to the side and said, “This is not a place to reason with them. Let’s try to pull in some money together. A little while later our train will come. You get on to our train first and get out of here. I will try to borrow some money for you on the train for you to pay for your tickets back home. If you let them take her away, it will be difficult to rescue her later.”

Professor Mo and two police officers thought hard and had to nod. So the few of us managed to pull together another 500 yuan.

Mao Dan’s mother reluctantly counted the money, cursing all the time. Before leaving, Mao Dan snatched Professor Wu’s Russian shawl away. Director Hou shouted: “Why do you grab people’s shawl? It’s useless to you.” Mao Dan said with a stiffened neck:” It’s her meal money. Who says it’s useless? I can make a bag with it.”

The village head put people in a hand tractor bursting with black smoke and drove away. Before leaving, Brother Ji said to Professor Mo, “If your family dares to sue us of trafficking in women, we will sue your daughter for intentional homicide. When she killed (the baby), we were all present.”

Director Hou invited Professor Mo’s family and two police officers to the soft seat waiting room. Professor Wu had been hugging her daughter Mohua and crying. With her messy hair, dirty face, torn clothes, and dull eyes, Mo Hua completely looked like a peasant woman. Who would believe she was a university student? Professor Mo squatted down and took Mo Hua’s hand, just silently weeping.

Later, Director Hou told me, the reason why Maodan’s family agreed to let her go was, for one, the police intervened; for two, this woman was too fierce. She tried to commit suicide every day. You needed people to watch over her even you got her chained up. The family could hardly take it anymore.

Especially this year, her health was getting worse and worse. There was no chance for her to bear another baby. It was even hard to say whether she could live until the end of the year. If she died, they would lose both the person and the money. Now that her family was willing to pay, they could at least get the money.

About half a year later, Director Hou sent someone to our train and wanted to get him a sleeper ticket. I looked at him and found that he was the village head. He was happy to see me and said, “Hey, we met again.”

After dinner, we chatted in the dining car. I said, “How come we have so much woman trafficking here?” The village head sighed and said: “You do not know that we are poor here since ancient times. When Qianlong Emperor toured the south and passed through here, he gave us four words: ‘Poor mountains and bad conditions.’ There was once a founding emperor here, but he was just a village rascal. It was crooked from the root. And people prefer boys to girls. All want to have boys. Girls are not wanted. People abandon and drown baby girls. The better girls want to marry outside the village, where can people find brides in the countryside? Mao Dan’s mother was also bought back then.”

“Why didn’t his mother escape?”

“Escape? How? If you get caught, you are beaten to death. Women got frightened later. After they gave birth to a child, they wouldn’t escape anymore. Mo Hua was too stubborn. The last time she was caught, they broke her legs and chained her up.

“Has anyone succeeded in running away?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“The village people are mostly relatives. If one family buys a woman, the whole village people are watching for his family, how can anyone run away?

Oh. It dawned on me.

“The other day it was said that Mo Hua had killed her two children, is it true? “ I asked with a puzzled face.

“Of course it’s true. When the child was snatched, Mo Hua’s hand was over the child’s mouth. A few people used much force to snatch the baby over. When I rushed to the health room, the child’s face was purple and blue. Handprints were still on its little face. I watched while the child died.”

“How come you didn’t report this to the police?”

“Report to the police? How can we? If we reported it to the police, Mo Hua would be arrested. Mao Dan would lose his wife, and their involvement with woman trafficking could get exposed too. So the family wouldn’t let anyone report it. Who would report it then?”

How much hatred for a woman to have for her to kill her own babies? I felt an inexplicable fear.

“Who says it is not so?” The village head took a sip of tea and said, “A while ago there were a few hair washing rooms(Jennifer’s note: the hair washing rooms are under-ground brothels) in town. Five yuan a time. The bachelors in the village all ran there. Now, these places were shut down after the government crackdown on prostitution. These bachelor men have no place to go. Every day they steal, fight and make a lot of trouble in the village. Very annoying. Everyone knows about the trafficking of women. But no one cares, nor dare to do anything about it.”

“Why?”

“Think about it, people do not have a wife, and the village and the township won’t help them. So people buy a wife themselves. And you don’t let them buy one? You want people extinct? Who would do such a thing?”

“Then there is no way out?”

“Who can find a way out? The birth control officer in our town said, there are tens of millions more men than women. So men can only be bachelors. Confucius says that the desire for food and sex is part of human nature. Tens of millions of bachelors, they can only have food, how about their sexual desires? If this issue is not solved, trafficking in women will always be there. This is a matter of taboo. It is difficult to speak the truth.”

We were fell into silence after this.

The day passed quite quickly, and a year later I saw Director Hou again. We chatted for a while and the conversation came to the village head. I asked, “How is he recently?”

Director Hou froze for a moment and said: “He has died.”

“Died? He was such a strong man, died? From what disease?

“No disease.”

My eyes were wide open.

Director Hou said with a long sigh, “He was poisoned to death.”

“Poisoned? Who poisoned him?”

“Professor Mo.”

“Professor Mo? Father of the graduate student Mo Hua?”

My mouth was wide open in shock.

Director Hou said: “After Professor Mo and his wife took Mo Hua home, they found she already had a serious mental illness. Sometimes she was clear-minded, sometimes not. As she had been chain-up in hunger and cold for a long time, she already had serious health issues. She did not cooperate with the treatment either, and died in less than two months. Before she died, she cried and told them intermittently about how she had been chased back by the village people several times over the years. Both her legs were broken. Every time she was ravaged by the family, they stripped off her pants in public and held her down so that Mao Dan could rape her. The people of the village guarded her like a thief, helping Maodan’s family keep an eye on her. She begged the village people and none of them were willing to send a letter for her. She approached the village head too, who not only ignored her but also said behind her back to Mao Dan that you’ve got to beat up your wife, just like you need to knead to wheat (to make noodles). As long as she had a child, everything would be good.

Professor Mo had only this one daughter. After listening to his daughter’s encounters, all his hair went grey in one month. One day Professor Mo returned from work. The house was quiet. He walked into the study and saw a letter on the table, with a large bottle full of highly toxic medicine on it. It was written by his wife: “I’m leaving. Please take revenge for Hua.” Professor Mo was shocked and rushed to the bedroom. His wife was lying on the bed fully dressed, her body twisted, her eyes were open and angry, and she had long since stopped breathing.

Professor Mo only felt a mouthful of blood rush up and fainted. After he came around, with shaking hands, he gently rubbed his wife’s eyes, slowly closed them, tore the suicide note, hid the bottle of highly toxic drugs, and reported to the police.

The police made a forensic examination and concluded that she committed suicide by taking poison.

The whole afterlife of the old lady was done by the Institute of Chemistry. Professor Mo sat in the chair all day. He did not open his eyes, nor did he speak. Considering his sad condition, the institute let him take a rest at home and he did not have to go to work.

Later, Professor Mo said he wanted to go out for a break, and the institute readily agreed. In fact, Professor Mo had already sold the housing allocated to him by the institute to a distant relative.

Professor Mo used the money to rent a house in the town of Mao Dan’s village. Through repeated reconnaissance, he determined the location of the village’s drinking water well and daily water consumption. He calculated the dose of poison he needed to put into the well.

Later, people in Mao Dan’s village died one after another. First, it was Older and frailer people, and later the young and strong also began to die. The village people panicked and started to flee. The officials also attached importance to this and sent a task force to the village to investigate. It so happened that there was a heavily polluted chemical plant built in the village on the windward side. After collecting a large amount of air, soil, and water, the task force concluded that the chemical plant was heavily polluted and they did not rule out that was the cause of the deaths in the village. The chemical plant was shut down for rectification, villagers came back one after another. However, a new round of deaths began again. As Professor Mo used a highly toxic that was rare in China, plus he stopped poisoning when the task force came, so the task force failed to detect it. The village people fled again. The village head stayed in the village to cooperate with the task force to solve the case, and eventually died.

After making sure that the village head had died, Professor Mo took the initiative to surrender to the Public Security Bureau and gave them all the relevant information before and after the incident.

Director Hou finished talking, and all the people present fell into silence.

February 8, 2022 *