SLAVERY ALLEGED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 243, 12 September 1929, Page 8

SLAVERY ALLEGED.

STARTLING REVELATION. Startling revelations of a flourishing new trade —the selling of Chinese women into slavery—which has followed the removal of the Chinese capital to Nanking, have been made by Pekin detectives. Information gathered by them indicates that a gang of traffickers has been operating since last autumn, and during that time has shipped away between 2000 and 3000 girls at fancy Pl The usual ‘method is to approach a family known to be in financial straits and buy the daughter of the house outright. Some of these human chattels are reported to have brought as much as £2OO, depending upon their attractiveness. , , . „ , , Another method is for a member of the gang to pretend to the * girl’s family that he wants her as a wife, and is willing to pay a suitable sum to her parents. As soon as lie marries the girl he represents to her that he has got a position in the army, or the Government, and that this necessitates his leaving Pekin. He takes her away with him. and, on reaching his destination, sells her into slavery for considerably more than the price paid to her parents. Owing to the vigilance of the local authorities, who find great difficulty in checking the practice, because of the great secrecy with which these transactions are put through, the slave dealers have avoided using the railway, and have smuggled their victims out' of .the city by rickshaw or mule cart to Manchuria, where Pekin women are said to be in great demand.