The trillion-dollar One Belt One Road project, now known as the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI), was officially announced in 2013 as one of the largest, most ambitious infrastructure
projects in known history. Linking Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and even Latin America, the
BRI, as President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative and the CCP’s “primary
mechanism of economic statecraft”, is projected to be China’s means of developing, “‘political
civilization’ writ large... [using] ‘Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach’” (Lindley, 2022;
Greer, 2018). The funding for this massive project comes from China through “loans, not grants”
granted to foreign governments; these agreements are neither assistance nor truly commercial (as
“repayments are often backed by collateral commitments (e.g., lease rights, minerals, or
commodities) made to the PRC government)” (Manuel, 2017; Congressional Research Service,
2023). Although it sometimes includes non-physical corporations such as cultural and academic
exchanges, the name One Belt One Road and its subsequent name, the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI), is mostly literal (Hart-Landsberg, 2021). The BRI separates into two main segments: the
Belt that recreates the land route of the historic Silk Road (with railways, energy infrastructure,
and literal highways) and the Road that paths through a series of ports to create a maritime trade
route spanning several oceans (Rashid et al., 2023; Chatzky et. al., 2023; Shepard, 2021).
China’s track record of human rights abuses does not paint a pretty picture: abroad
Chinese companies have been repeatedly reported for human rights abuses ranging “from land
rights, pollution... labor rights, health threats, [to the] losses of livelihood [of indigenous
peoples]” (Lo, 2021). In countries that have joined the BRI, heavy debts, and an increase in
“backdoor deals... displacement of local communities, [domestic] corruption, domestic financial
deficiency, [and] the rise of xenophobia” are as impressive as the scale of new infrastructure
(Benli, 2021). Each of these factors, including the CCP’s abuse of the ethnic minorities, all lend
themselves to one result: China’s One Belt One Road project enables international human
trafficking. Through corruption, displacement, and globalization China has allowed for
international organized crime organizations to develop trafficking empires in Cambodia and
Myanmar, the establishment of an extended human trafficking industry for sex and brides, and an
increase in forced labor along and to the direct benefit of the BRI.
Corruption and the BRI
The foundation for the success of organized human trafficking groups is systemic
corruption in both China and the foreign countries it cooperates with. For the BRI, China
specifically exploits countries that other world powers— namely the United States— will not
assist including authoritarian regimes and countries with high rates of human rights abuses and
poverty. With the appearance of a savior to those left behind, China, “presents poorer states with
an offer the West never had for them: to provide them with infrastructure and technology”
(Kaczmarski, 2016, p. 27). In many of the countries that the BRI “aims to connect, corruption is
endemic” (Hillman, 2019). Because the Chinese government does not oversee these projects,
conditions “are ripe for inefficiency since many countries involved in the BRI exhibit high levels
of internal corruption” (Lindley, 2022). Functionally, the BRI’s decentralized
project-management system and concessional loans are a “recipe for cost escalation and
corruption” (Greer, 2018). In smaller or authoritarian countries “there is little chance that leaders
will be held accountable for lining their pockets (or, more rarely, the coffers of their local
communities) at the entire nation’s expense” (Greer, 2018). Within these “systemically corrupt
business and regulatory environments,” bribery may be a natural way for construction companies
to garner necessary local support (Benli, 2021). This corrupt environment encourages abhorrent
“governance, environmental, and human rights standards” and plays a vital role “in facilitating
trafficking in persons and perpetuating impunity for traffickers” (Manuel, 2017; US Department
of State, 2022).
Since the 1990s and earlier, China has faced a history rife with bribery and corruption.
After a century of poverty, strong social divisions, and disparities “between the rich and the poor,
the urban and rural populations, and the inland and coastal provinces” grew alongside the belief
that “money is everything” (Wing et al., 2019). To this endemic “get rich mentality” the Justice
system within China covers its eyes, lessening charges in cases that display signs of human
trafficking to “administrative issues” and allowing for the continued practice of bribery among
officials to influence, obstruct, and prevent the prosecution of human traffickers (US Department
of State, 2022). Inversely, Human trafficking and corruption, “are closely linked criminal
activities, whose interrelation is frequently referred to in international fora” (US Department of
State, 2022). Certainly, as a result of these overlapping factors it is no wonder that over the years
the international community has received continuous reports of law enforcement agents
“benefiting from, permitting, or directly facilitating sex trafficking and forced labor” with zero
“legal investigations, prosecutions, convictions, or administrative fines or demotions of law
enforcement officials allegedly involved in the crime” (USC US-China Institute, 2022). Corrupt
Chinese officials assist “unscrupulous or unlicensed recruitment agencies... [recruit] workers for
overseas employment, [provide] false documentation, [enable] illegal movements across
borders... facilitate or turn a blind eye to ongoing illicit activities... [and] facilitate the
acquisition, sale, or border crossing of goods that may have been produced by forced labor” (US
Department of State, 2022). Chinese corruption emboldens human traffickers and incentivizes
organized crime syndicates to expand their operations and victimize more people.
Displacement and the BRI
The economic disparity, displacement, and debt caused by the BRI also enable human
trafficking. For China, these conditions help fill a need for cheap labor and bride and sex
trafficking generated by a decreased working population and gender imbalance caused by its
one-child policy (Oxford Analytica, 2019). With the development of cross-border links and
increased travel under the implementation of the BRI, opportunities, and demand for trafficked
women “from surrounding developing countries for forced marriage to men in China who are
unable to find local brides” has increased (Oxford Analytica, 2019). Most human trafficking
abuses occur and are “more likely to take place” in countries with “weaker governance and
where Chinese investments are dominant” such as Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru,
Ecuador, and many other African and Latin American countries (Al Jazeera, 2021).
The target demographic of BRI projects, countries with resource-rich economies that are
seeking foreign investment, face low commodity values, straining “government revenues and
precipitated exchange rate crises—both of which constrain a government’s ability to repay
external borrowing” (Hart-Landsberg, 2021). Because countries are required to pay back loans
even if the infrastructure does not generate economic benefits, smaller or debt-ridden countries
are particularly vulnerable to loan default (Hart-Landsberg, 2021). Construction projects are built
by CCP companies, employ mostly CCP nationals and materials, and are paid for with a loan that
the host country must pay back (with interest) (Hart-Landsberg, 2021). In Laos, Pakistan, Ghana,
Zambia, and Montenegro, the BRI plunged the countries into further debt, nearing unsustainable
debt for some and defaults for others (Lim, 2023; Hart-Landsberg, 2021; Chatzky et al., 2023).
As debt increases so does poverty and the supply of potential trafficking victims. The BRI also
physically causes damage in these countries, “[displacing] or [disrupting] existing communities”
(Hart-Landsberg, 2021). Labeled a human rights disaster, a China-financed hydroelectric dam in
Cambodia displaced “nearly 5,000... ethnic minorities... [permanently] flooding [their homes
and] former communities” (Al Jazeera, 2021). This story among many others displays how
Chinese building standards along the BRI cause instability and generate asylum-seekers, IDPs,
and refugees who are at a “very high risk of trafficking due to their lack of legal, financial, and
food security” (US Department of State, 2022). Economic disparities within these regions and
between China and BRI allies generate “both a demand for and supply of cheap labor driving
growth in human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants as people seek opportunity”
(UNODC, 2019).
The consistent enabler behind this international victimization is connectivity. With BRI
access, human traffickers can easily find, move, and supply victims to meet rising demands for
Chinese demand for cheap labor, sex, and brides. There is a deep “relationship between
cross-border crime and economic integration” (Sprick, 2017). Globalization, the connection
between countries through infrastructure, trade, and collaboration, streamlines and facilitates
human trafficking for organized crime syndicates, increasing accessibility to a supply and
demand of human beings and conveniently allowing human trafficking organizations to expand
their business (Sprick, 2017). While coinciding with or elongating some existing trafficking
routes, the BRI has removed and reduced barriers for traffickers, allowing for them to increase
their monthly trades and transactions (Dubow, 2017). Increasingly “liberal border regimes that
promote cross-border trade” and deregulated economies lead, reasonably, to more permeable
borders and opportunities for multi-regional crime (Sprick, 2017).
Examples of Human Trafficking: Cambodia and Myanmar
Alongside mounting poor practices that assist human trafficking processes, there are
many examples of large-scale organized human trafficking organizations that take advantage of
the BRI’s reputation. In 2010, Cambodia signed a 12.5 billion U.S. dollar agreement with the
CCP to invest in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (China Labor Watch, 2022). In this
zone, companies would have their export and import taxes waived. Subsequently, Chinese
investment in Cambodia “skyrocketed,” accounting for, “43 percent of foreign direct investment
in the country in 2019” (Desai et al., 2022). As COVID restrictions led to a mass exodus of
Chinese workers and customers within the zone, local demand and profits plummeted. At the
same time, youth from nearby countries began to flood the job market (Hong, 2022; Tower &
Clapp, 2022b; China Labor Watch, 2022).Via “job scams” individuals who could speak Chinese
began to be targeted (lured and in some cases kidnapped) from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia,
and Macau for forced labor as a means of cutting costs and increasing profit (Lam, 2022). As a
simple form of forced, coercive labor, at first foreigners were “introduced to Cambodia by
intermediaries [and] labor brokers” who confiscated the worker’s passport on arrival and would
require workers to pay the company for “damages” before they were allowed to leave or quit
(China Labor Watch, 2022). With ever-increasing immigration discourse of ethnic conflicts,
environmental pollution, crimes, gentrification, and displacement of local and indigenous
populations (China Labor Watch, 2022). Although this problem is common in BRI countries
even for Chinese nationals working under PRC companies, Cambodia’s workforce and criminal
underworld continued to mature their human trafficking to optimize gambling and scam profits
(China Labor Watch, 2022).
Sihanoukville was a strategic position along China’s BRI that allowed for a large inflow
of, “Chinese capital, labor, and construction” and the creation of a “hub for crime syndicates”
(Hong, 2022). Human trafficking victims (from China or smaller countries) are lured to enter
Cambodia or a nearby country via “snakeheads” through false job advertisements and love cons
before their passport is seized and they are trained and entrapped within massive Chinese-run
scamming compounds to live their lives as indentured servants (China Labor Watch, 2022; Hong,
2022). Traffick victims then defraud others via “Pig Butchering,” an online scam that uses social
engineering to steal from victims by gradually luring them to increase their investments before
suddenly disappearing (Hong, 2022). Victims, sold for ten to thirty thousand U.S. dollars per
person, are forced to buy their way out of slavery and face slavery-era conditions including
restrictions of freedom, imprisonment, beatings, electrocution, sexual assault, forced prostitution,
organ harvesting, death, and being “‘resold’ to other scam operations’” (China Labor Watch,
2022; Hong, 2022; Lam, 2022). By 2021, “thousands of victims were involved” and by 2022
Cambodia alone had lured “50,000 to 100,000 people into slave-like conditions beyond the reach
of law enforcement” (China Labor Watch, 2022; Tower & Clapp, 2022b). While running these
compounds, criminals mask their behaviors through denial— declaring that others are
impersonating their group— while publicly claiming “to be operating under the umbrella of
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” (Tower & Clapp, 2022a). The Prince Group, for
example, publicly masquerades as a group of real estate developers while raking in money from
fraudulent businesses built on fraud, human trafficking, prostitution, and drugs, and
well-established money laundering systems (Hong, 2022). With their power, owners, and bosses
— mainland Chinese and Malaysians— “enjoy nepotism and connections at the highest level of
the Cambodian government” (Hong, 2022).
With increased Chinese public and investment outreach under the BRI, victims find that
the law and the public are apathetic to their conditions. As a devoted ally of China and to the
BRI, Chinese forces seem hesitant to demand harsh crackdowns on businesses in Cambodia that
would, “upset the Cambodian elites profiting from their association with the Mafias” (Pierson,
2022). The involvement of Chinese and Cambodian law enforcement often worsens conditions
for victims and implicitly reinforces human trafficker’s authority. When compounds are raided,
Chinese and Cambodian officials prosecute those involved in cyber scams “regardless of their
status as victims of human trafficking” (China Labor Watch, 2022). When victims attempt to
escape their trafficking compounds, they are often charged as illegal immigrants and sent to
detention centers to “[sleep] on the floor in tight quarters without any air conditioning” (Podkul
& Liu, 2022). Similarly, public Chinese sentiment condemns human trafficking victims. In
Chinese-written papers on the subject, authors repeatedly note that Chinese labor markets are
better than foreign ones even in cases of forced labor, implying that victims should be grateful to
their traffickers (Loc, 2022). Victims, one source noted, are not useful, proper members of
society that should be saved because “the one who has working skills can easily get a good job”
(Loc, 2022).
Within press releases, media sources focus on Myanmar as a secondary hub for organized
human trafficking and fraud operations. For most of the same reasons as Cambodia and via all
the same means, Myanmar’s Special Economic Zone (a BRI funded project), civil war, and
stop-and-go BRI projects have allowed criminal activity to flourish into a billion-dollar business
(Lim, 2023). In 2023, the United Nations estimated that there were 120,000 human trafficking
victims in Myanmar (Rebane et al., 2023). Disproportionate to the number of headlines in each
country, Myanmar’s human trafficking problem could be “two to three times [larger than
Cambodia] most of them enticed through social media ads promising lucrative office jobs in
Thailand” (Tower & Clapp, 2022b).
Many of the victims are gathered from across the border in Thailand “with promises of
white-collar jobs” before being transported into Myanmar “where they are held against their will
and forced to steal millions in cryptocurrency” (Rebane et al., 2023). As globalization and to
some degree the BRI continues to connect countries across continental divides, Indians,
Indonesians, Taiwanese, Kenyans, and Ukrainians alike are trafficked into Southeast Asia to
work under Chinese slavery scam factories enabled by the special economic zones created under
the BRI and funded by investment companies who claim to fall under the BRI’s umbrella (Tower
& Clapp, 2022b). As modern-day slaves under one of the largest collections of human trafficking
victims in recent history, victims are expected to impersonate generic personalities— often
young women— to conduct a pig butchering scam or love scam, stealing from anyone that they
can (Rebane et al., 2023). Hosted inside city-like enclaves with the appearance of penal colonies
and full of living spaces and offices, each victim is assigned to a group, room, and boss based
upon their nationality (Sipalan & Jones, 2022). Many accounts claim that workers are tortured or
“threatened with having their organs harvested” if they do not “generate adequate revenue from
operating scams” (Tower & Clapp, 2022b).
Criminal activity continues to expand in this region as syndicates, addicted to the amount
of money made from these operations, relocate to other countries when they are kicked out by
law enforcement in another country (Sipalan & Jones, 2022). The Saixigang Industrial Zone
Project (“Saixigang” translates to “Surpass Sihanoukville”) is one of the larger bases of
operations for these organizations (Tower & Clapp, 2022a). The leaders of these groups are often
triad leaders such as Wan Kuok-kui who formerly ran the 14k mafia to engage in criminal
activities on a global scale and who are now running businesses that “claim to be operating under
the umbrella of China’s [BRI]” (Tower & Clapp, 2022a).
Despite the size of these factories and the fact that many of the victims of these scams
and human trafficking in these regions are Chinese, the CCP has mostly remained silent on
“ethnic-Chinese criminal organizations that purport to represent Beijing’s strategic interest”
(Staff, 2022). Beijing will step up to deny these connections only when projects generate strong
social or international backlash. The CCP’s “strong public concern over the rise in crime” is
limited to just that: concern. Historically, Chinese efforts to crack down on organized crime in
Myanmar caused by its BRI deal have, “done more to increase Chinese security influence... than
[to] thwart… powerful Chinese crime syndicates” (Tower, 2023). These criminal zones continue
to expand despite China’s attempts to appear “tough on crime” (Tower, 2023).
Bride Trafficking and the BRI
Although more inter-regional, bride trafficking and forced marriages have also increased
along the BRI. Human traffickers use the PRC as a “transit point to subject foreign individuals to
trafficking in other countries throughout Asia and in international maritime industries” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022). Along the BRI where construction projects occur, “Sex trafficking...
and exploitative marriages featuring elements of sex trafficking and forced labor have reportedly
increased” (USC US-China Institute, 2022). Because the BRI displaces local communities
rapidly with minimal or no compensation “for those who lose their homes,” vulnerabilities are
compounded, and many fall victim to trafficking or exploitation (USC US-China Institute, 2022).
Women and girls internationally, “from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and several countries in
Africa [have experienced] forced labor in domestic service, forced concubinage leading to forced
childbearing, and sex trafficking via forced and fraudulent marriage to PRC men” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022).
Although more inter-regional, bride trafficking and forced marriages have also increased
along the BRI. Human traffickers use the PRC as a “transit point to subject foreign individuals to
trafficking in other countries throughout Asia and in international maritime industries” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022). Along the BRI where construction projects occur, “Sex trafficking...
and exploitative marriages featuring elements of sex trafficking and forced labor have reportedly
increased” (USC US-China Institute, 2022). Because the BRI displaces local communities
rapidly with minimal or no compensation “for those who lose their homes,” vulnerabilities are
compounded, and many fall victim to trafficking or exploitation (USC US-China Institute, 2022).
Women and girls internationally, “from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and several countries in
Africa [have experienced] forced labor in domestic service, forced concubinage leading to forced
childbearing, and sex trafficking via forced and fraudulent marriage to PRC men” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022).
Although more inter-regional, bride trafficking and forced marriages have also increased
along the BRI. Human traffickers use the PRC as a “transit point to subject foreign individuals to
trafficking in other countries throughout Asia and in international maritime industries” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022). Along the BRI where construction projects occur, “Sex trafficking...
and exploitative marriages featuring elements of sex trafficking and forced labor have reportedly
increased” (USC US-China Institute, 2022). Because the BRI displaces local communities
rapidly with minimal or no compensation “for those who lose their homes,” vulnerabilities are
compounded, and many fall victim to trafficking or exploitation (USC US-China Institute, 2022).
Women and girls internationally, “from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and several countries in
Africa [have experienced] forced labor in domestic service, forced concubinage leading to forced
childbearing, and sex trafficking via forced and fraudulent marriage to PRC men” (USC
US-China Institute, 2022). Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, and other countries that are committed to the
BRI are “typically tricked by brokers who promise well-paid employment across the border in China”
before being sold to Chinese families for three thousand to thirty thousand U.S. dollars
(Barr, 2020; USC US-China Institute, 2022; Carvalho, 2023). Once purchased, the women become
prisoners. Men, often in partnership with their parents, sometimes, “incur large debts to cover
these fees, which they attempt to recover by subjecting the women and girls to forced labor or
sex trafficking” (USC US-China Institute, 2022).
Many of the women who are trafficked share a similar story: a broker convinces a
desperate victim that there are business opportunities in China before being transported across
countries to China and being thrown in front of a man who would “size” the victim up and
decide if she is worth the money (Carvalho, 2023). The woman is coerced to accept the marriage
and promises a small dowry (Carvalho, 2023). In some cases, it is the parents of the women or
girls who promote them to sell themselves to Chinese men, claiming that it will make their
family’s life better (Carvalho, 2023). Whether it is for prostitution, sexual material, marriage, or
cybersex trafficking, most survivors of human trafficking know their trafficker whether it is their
boyfriend, a relative, an online friend, or a neighbor (Carvalho, 2023; Admin, 2021). Those aged
thirteen to twenty-five are especially vulnerable; “Of the 1,248 detected victims of trafficking for
sexual exploitation during the 2014- 2017 period, almost 70 percent were girls [children]”
(Admin, 2021).
This form of crime is without risk for those trafficking the women. Women and girls are a
low priority for the home governments of these victims (Barr, 2020). Once the women find
themselves in China, many are not considered legally married or even legal residents of the
country. Treated as a slave, and physically and sexually abused, these women have nowhere to
go for help (Carvalho, 2023). Authorities from their home countries and China refuse to
investigate, acquit traffickers, and pressure women to not share their stories in fear that legal or
social action will harm BRI cooperation between China and these poorer countries (Carvalho,
2023).
According to Chinese public perception, these women are not victimized but rather
rescued by Chinese men. This pattern of trafficking “has become normalized” and synonymous
with “migrating for job opportunities” (Carvalho, 2023). Within Chinese government-funded
publications, Myanmar women experience a “happy and pleasant road” to marrying into China
(Barr, 2020). Chinese professors claim that the only problem with this kind of trafficking is that
“‘Myanmar women don’t know Chinese culture. Once they learn the Chinese language and
culture, their marriages are fine’” (Barr, 2020).
Forced Labor and the BRI
Although forced labor was a staple of Cambodia and Myanmar’s special economic zones,
it also continues along the entire BRI. To begin with, PRC authorities perpetuate human
trafficking crimes by forcing minorities, namely those living in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region, a frontier and hub of the BRI, into camps where they are “re-educated,”
displaced from their homes (so that the BRI can be built), and forced to work on domestic
products due to “incidents of violence and terrorism” alleged by the CCP and Chinese-allied
countries (Benli, 2021; Bifolchi, 2018). Well-acquainted with forced labor from years of forced
labor and mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in China, the PRC has repeatedly been reported
for forced labor in countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe working on BRI
projects or unlabeled PRC-affiliated infrastructure projects (US Department of State, 2023).
Even for Chinese citizens working on the BRI, PRC authorities provide, “insufficient oversight
of relevant recruitment channels, contracts, and labor conditions, and... routinely failed to
identify or assist those exploited” (US Department of State, 2023).
Inside China, rural communities are lured by false job advertisements or forced or
coerced through other means, to move into a city where the PRC’s national household registry
system allows for criminals to legally restrict their victim’s freedom by legally changing his or
her residence. Under the control of criminals, this places the PRC’s “internal migrant
population—estimated to exceed 169 million people—at high risk of forced labor in brick kilns,
coal mines, and factories. Some of these businesses operate illegally and take advantage of lax
government enforcement” while others are legally owned, managed, operated, and sanctioned
under the PRC as BRI worksites funded by PRC companies, nationals, or the government (USC
US-China Institute, 2022).
As one source aptly succinctly remarked, “The entire Belt and Road initiative is based on
forced labor... the competitive advantage China is exporting is its low regard for human rights”
(Kuo & Chen, 2021). Despite the numerous safeguard policies and regulations designed to
protect overseas workers and to comply with local labor laws, PRC-owned companies working
on the BRI ignore these rules and exploit workers, exporting the same labor practices found
inside China (Halegua, 2020). Human rights— especially in opposition to forced labor—
deteriorate in BRI countries (Mihr et al., 2022). Outside of China, crime syndicates headed by
PRC nationals assist traffickers in Southeast Asian countries that are connected to China by the
BRI to “produce counterfeit travel documents to facilitate trans-border trafficking” and cooperate
with companies “operating under the auspices of the BRI” to supply migrant workers who—
forced to labor— manufacture necessary supplies for BRI projects (USC US-China Institute,
2022). Within more than eighty countries, PRC-owned and managed construction companies
force victims to work (USC US-China Institute, 2022).
Because the BRI requires a “substantial workforce,” laborers are often imported from
various external countries (Rashid et al., 2023). These workers are vulnerable to exploitation due
to inadequate working conditions, limited legal protections, and a general lack of oversight
(Rashid et al., 2023). Increased movement of people creates opportunities for human trafficking
and allows PRC companies to compel victims to work against their will using force, fraud, or
coercion (Rashid et al., 2023). In some cases, workers have had their human rights violated, are
subjected to enforced disappearances, and are killed extrajudicially (Rashid et al., 2023).
Workers employed at large-scale BRI or PRC-affiliated “construction projects, mining
operations, and factories in African; European; Middle Eastern; Asian and Pacific” experience
human trafficking through wage withholding, absence of contracts, torture, excessive work
hours, restricted freedom of movement and external communication, deceptive recruitment into
debt bondage, physical and sexual abuse, resignation penalties, denial of access to urgent
medical care, and the confiscation of passports and identification documents (USC US-China
Institute, 2022; Zhang, 2022; US Department of State, 2023). Those who are brave enough to
attempt an escape, “often find themselves at the mercy of local immigration authorities who are
not always trained to receive or care for trafficking victims” (USC US-China Institute, 2022). In
one case, a man attempted to escape forced work conditions by paying a PRC national broker to
help them leave the country. The broker took his money and dropped him off at another
PRC-affiliated industrial park where they were forced to work under the same set of abusive
conditions. Saving money once again to escape, the next smuggler dumped them into the water
off the coast of Malaysia where, when they swam to shore, authorities shot, arrested, and
detained them (US Department of State, 2022). Overseas workers are often given tourist visas for
their work in other countries; with their short expiration dates these visas allow for companies to
threaten workers with deportation and indirectly pressure workers to avoid speaking about labor
rights abuses” (Zhang, 2022).
Chinese workers abroad “fall through the cracks of national labor law” (Kuo & Chen,
2021). Historically, the PRC has exercised little to no oversight over BRI contracts, recruitment
channels, and labor conditions (USC US-China Institute, 2022). Because China’s abroad labor
protection laws leave overseas worker’s cases under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Commerce (which is responsible for the economy and trade and not labor protection), Chinese
citizens are left with little to no means of legal assistance and BRI companies that illegally force
Chinese citizens to work are often left unpunished (Zhang, 2022). Even Chinese embassies lack
the jurisdictional power to help victims; one staffer noted, “We can of course speak with the
company, but whether the company listens to us is another matter” (Yasa, 2022). In one case,
workers were mocked and told that they should go back to China and sue the company; workers
noted that they lacked the money to sue and that doing so could threaten both their livelihood
and their families (Yasa, 2022). The countries in which they work hold little promise of justice;
many do not have protective anti-trafficking laws due to, “historical, cultural, and colonial
factors” or may even lack an effective justice system that can aid or protect victims (Zhang,
2022).
Conclusion
Referenced examples and years of research strongly suggest that China and its Belt and
Road Initiative have repeatedly enabled human trafficking within its borders and outside of them.
Just as the BRI began with the genocide, detention, and trafficking of Uighurs in Northern China
so has the PRC continued to allow the BRI to enable human trafficking in ways that benefit
China’s objectives. As the BRI connects wealthy nations and worsens debt and living standards
in poor nations through false promises of prosperity, the world will see continued or expanded
organized human trafficking operations across Eurasia, Africa, and any other continent that the
BRI touches. As standards worsen and PRC and Chinese investors pillage and abuse these small
countries in collaboration with corrupt and ambitious foreign government officials, China’s
demand for human trafficking will continue to be supplied by its victims. Large-scale hubs of
human trafficking such as in Cambodia and Myanmar and small-scale bubbles of crime in the
form of bride, sex, and force labor trafficking via BRI construction projects and along BRI routes
will not cease so long as countries allow for the PRC to feed off of their people, worsen national
debt, and make BRI deals that exchange the well being of the public for the benefit of China and
officials who tow the CCP’s political line. With consistent reports of human trafficking, local
displacement, and shamelessly predatory practices, it is overtly clear that China is directly
seeking out countries that are so desperate for critical infrastructure and funding that they are
willing to ignore China’s predatory and harmful practices and intentions. As the BRI’s influence
grows and the CCP maintains its apathy towards large- and small-scale organized crime
perpetuated by Chinese groups with impunity, it is likely that human trafficking will continue to
affect any country that traffickers can easily and readily access through the BRI.
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