Sold 3 times in China, Nghe An girl escapes back to her hometown, denounces the person who tricked her

Dream of a new life

Returning home after 3 years away, Cut Thi H. (born in 1990), residing in Chieu Luu commune, Ky Son district, Nghe An province, looks older than her age. Like many other mountain girls in the village, due to difficult circumstances and lack of everything, H. always longs for a comfortable life.

In the remote border area, at H.'s age, most of his peers were married and had children, but H.'s love life was still bumpy. H. said that before that, he had heard rumors among the villagers about a prosperous life without having to work hard in China, so H. had a dream of changing his life.

Subject Vi Van Khay. Photo: Bao Nguyen

Around the beginning of 2016, while confiding in Chich Thi H. (born in 1999) and Ven Thi S. in the same village about the difficulties of "selling their faces to the land, selling their backs to the sky" when having to work on the fields, and believing in the prospect of wealth in a foreign land, H. increasingly wished to go to China.

To carry out her plan, H. decided to go to China with S. and H. to get married. The three mountain girls quickly fell into the trap of human traffickers.

Through a relationship, Chich Thi H. asked Vi Van Khay to take her to China. Knowing the intentions of the three mountain girls, Vi Van Khay rode a motorbike to pick up Ven Thi S., Cut Thi H. and Chich Thi H. to his house to sleep alone for the night.

Then, Khay called Can Thi Mo (living in the same village, currently living in China) and asked: "Can you take someone to China to get married? I have 3 people who want to go." Mo answered "yes".

Then, Mo went to meet H., S. and H. directly and said that if they agreed to go to China, "I will pay you each 70 million VND". Cut Thi H., Ven Thi S. and Chich Thi H. agreed. Mo proposed to hire Khay to take the 3 people to Mong Cai City, Quang Ninh Province for 10 million VND/person. Khay agreed and took the 3 young women to Mong Cai bus station, Mong Cai City, Quang Ninh Province, where they met a strange man.

This person introduced himself as Can Thi Mo's person, so Khay handed H., S., and H. over to this man and took a bus back. On the way back, Khay received a phone call from Mo to meet him in Con Cuong town. Here, Mo gave Khay 20 million VND "for taking the three of them to Mong Cai for you"; the remaining 10 million VND was sent to Khay a year later by Mo.

3 years sold 3 times

In a foreign land, the three were taken by the strange man to live in Mo's house. Afterwards, Chich Thi H., Ven Thi S. and Cut Thi H. were sold by Mo to Chinese men to be their wives. Cut Thi H. did not know how much she and the two people she was sold for.

Sold as a wife in a foreign land, H.'s dream of "changing her life" was shattered. In contrast to the prospect of a prosperous life, without having to work hard, were days of humiliation, mistreatment, torture, even violence and working hard all day to serve her husband and family.

After being sold to her first husband as a wife, due to fear and homesickness, H. protested and her husband's family returned her to Mo. It was thought that this woman from the same hometown would free H., but more painfully, Can Thi Mo cruelly continued to sell H. as a wife to another man.

During the time she became the second man's wife, Mo often texted and called Cut Thi H. to ask about her condition, causing H. to once again trust this woman. Taking advantage of her husband's family's negligence, Cut Thi H. ran away and contacted Mo to bring her back to Vietnam as promised. However, once again, Can Thi Mo sold H. to another Chinese man.

According to H., the family of her third husband kept her under strict house arrest, not allowing her to use the phone or go out. Not knowing the language, not knowing the roads, and the restrictive life made H. sometimes think about death to free herself, but then she felt sorry for her parents and missed her relatives in the countryside who were waiting for her, so she stopped. After a period of living together, H. gave birth to a child with him.

Unable to bear the humiliation and shame in a foreign land, Cut Thi H. tried to escape and returned to Vietnam at the end of November 2019. At home, H. learned that her family had not received the 70 million VND that Mo had promised her. Cut Thi H. filed a complaint against Vi Van Khay with the police.

Based on the victim’s testimony and the process of verifying and collecting documents and evidence, Ky Son District Police began an investigation. Identifying this as a complex human trafficking ring, the unit established a Project to concentrate forces and deploy synchronous measures to investigate.

On December 12, the Special Investigation Committee arrested Vi Van Khay and expanded the investigation into the case.