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When So was 13, she was stolen from her Vietnamese mountain town and sold in China. Just months before, her mother Do had sold herself across the border to save her life.
At 13, most children are starting high school, but not So. Already independent, she packed her bags and left her small mountain village to work in Sapa town, a thriving tourist hub in north Vietnam.
So found a job working illegally at a noodle shop, rented a room and felt free and excited in her region's only urban hotspot.
But after just two months, she was gone — one of a growing number of Vietnamese women trafficked to China, a path her mother Do had taken only three months before.
"My friend Sa and I met two boys at the lake in town," So explains, almost two years later. "I'd never met one of the boys before but the other guy was Sa's boyfriend so it seemed OK to go together."
So and Sa saw no issue in hopping on the back of two motorbikes with their new friends. They'd be back in Sapa before nightfall.
It wasn't until So's driver turned off the main road into a forest that she began to feel nervous.
"He had one hand driving and one hand texting," says So.
"I asked him 'where are we?' and I asked him to stop, but he didn't."
Eventually the motorbikes slowed — they had reached a river. The Red River, winding the length of Lao Cai's border with China's Yunnan province, is a notorious crossing for traffickers. On the other side, the men who would receive the young girls were waiting.
Stolen, sold, rarely returned
At least 100 girls are repatriated to Lao Cai province from China every year, but many more are stolen, sold and never returned.
Lao Cai, one of the poorest, most isolated and most ethnically diverse provinces in Vietnam, is a prime spot for traffickers.
There are few statistics available that show exactly how many women and girls like So are trafficked to China every year, but the issue is on the rise all over Vietnam. Whether they are kidnapped or tricked with the promise of love or a better life, girls as young as 13 are sold across the border as sex workers, factory workers or, increasingly, brides.
Sold as a slave
So's trafficker manhandled her down to the water and the two girls were forced to wade across in the darkness.
"On the other side, two guys held me and Sa and the other two guys went to the bushes to pay each other," says So. "That's when I felt really scared. They had taken my phone and my money so I had no way to call for help.
"One guy said 'if you don't stay here, I'll kill you. I've killed many people before, do you want to go down to have a look?'"
The girls were forced onto motorbikes, sandwiched between their Chinese buyers and Vietnamese traffickers.
"They took us to a house where we stayed for a night and in the morning, they brought a dress for Sa and put her in high heels," says So. "I never saw her again."
So was sold three times in China, travelling more than 1,800km to Nanyang, an industrial city in the north-west of the country. Too young to be married off, she was bought as a "daughter" for a couple who lived in a 15th floor apartment.
"I couldn't speak Chinese so I could only communicate in sign language," says So. "I felt so isolated. My only freedom was when I was asked to empty the trash."
So's "father" was an alcoholic and when his wife went out, he became very suggestive.
"I began to be frightened for my own safety. I knew I needed an escape plan."
So's great escape
So made as much rubbish as she could, filling up the bins, and suggested she take them down to the street.
"He was watching from the balcony as I went down," So remembers.
She had no money but she knew this might be her only chance so she ran, eventually taking refuge in a small, bustling supermarket. She knew her "mother" and "father" would be looking for her.
That night, some Chinese people found her and took her to the police.
After two months at the police station, So was returned to Vietnam.
From mother to daughter
In the north of Vietnam most victims are young teens like So, according to Australian NGO, The Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. But in some cases, parents are the ones being trafficked. So's mother, Do, offered herself to traffickers, desperate to escape to what she hoped would be a better life.
So's father was an abusive opium addict; the situation came to a head when he beat Do so badly that he broke her jaw. Do pushed for a divorce for six months but finally saw no option but to run, leaving her daughters with a local NGO for their safety.
"I asked some friends to help me to go, then we went to the border and just crossed over," Do says.
"My sister in China paid [traffickers] for bringing me there to cover the bus fare. They didn't sell me."
Unlike most trafficking victims, Do was able to choose from a line of potential husbands who came to her sister's house. She was sold to the man of her choice and now lives with him in China.
China — a promised land
Do says that she would never recommend doing what she did, but many Vietnamese still see China as an escape route, especially older women fleeing abuse or abject poverty.
According to the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, there is a misconception across Vietnam about what life is like in China and some trafficked women go willingly at first, tricked by the promise of work or opportunity.
"[Some] victims … believe false promises, for example one case where the victim agreed to go with her friend for a job in Korea," says Le Thi Hong Luong, Blue Dragon anti-trafficking coordinator. "They applied for a visa, they had a passport, they travelled by plane, but of course they stopped in China."
Two different worlds
Young women are trafficked to China from all over Vietnam, but the issue is particularly rife in Sapa.
The town was a well-kept secret before Vietnam's Doi Moi reforms opened its doors to international tourism and trade in 1986.
Today, it is a tourist hotspot, with visits rising 32 per cent in 2015-16. But Sapa's ethnic minority groups still live traditional lives, especially So's people, the Hmong.
This lack of cultural integration is what puts Hmong women at particular risk of trafficking, according to Mr Hoolihan.
"You've got a population that have lived, because of their nomadic history, in self-contained small communities and … always assumed that society is safe.
"That is becoming less relevant as Sapa grows and changes."
ETHOS, a tour company supporting marginalised minority groups in Lao Cai, organises regular anti-trafficking workshops with the Sapa District Women's Union.
Demand for trafficked brides is rising, as China's one-child policy and Confucian preference for male children has left it with a deficit of women.
30 to 40 million Chinese men will be unable to find brides from their own country by 2020, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Most young girls in Sapa are aware of trafficking, but according to ETHOS, have little concept of how to protect themselves. Almost all have smartphones and use social media, and most are not wary when meeting new people online.
The issue is made more complex by the Hmong tradition of marrying young — children in year 9 are already thinking about finding a spouse and traffickers prey on their naivety.
"They're are young, easily influenced teenagers," Mr Hoolihan says, "they are following their hearts and not their heads."
At the most recent anti-trafficking workshop, almost all the girls knew someone who had been trafficked through an online boyfriend or fiance.
Opportunistic traffickers will even use the loss of one girl to trick the next one. A few days after So was stolen, her sister, My, hung posters with the help of the team at ETHOS.
Eventually someone called My.
"He said, 'you want to come to Lao Cai to meet your sister?'," My remembers.
"He had no leads," Mr Hoolihan adds. "He knew that she was the older sister and wanted to use her vulnerability to trick her into going."
In many cases, Hmong parents are just as unaware about the risks of trafficking as their children, having grown up in a very different world.
In Hmong culture, children are independent at a young age, so most parents see no issue with allowing their daughters to live and work in town. What's more, many do not know how to operate smartphones or what social media is.
The Trung family lost their 17 year-old daughter Nhu almost four years ago. They kept Nhu away from Sapa town, but even in the village she was constantly meeting people through her smartphone.
"She was always on the phone and we were worried for her because she played with a lot of boys," says Mrs Trung. "We didn't know what to do."
"We were all at a party that day and then she was gone," says Mrs Trung, who has regained contact with her stolen daughter.
"She met a young man at the lake in Sapa town and doesn't remember anything after that."
Mothers fight back
Co is one of a new generation of mothers taking a proactive approach to trafficking. Many young Hmong mothers worked in town when they were younger and have watched Sapa change into the bustling, unpredictable town it is today.
Co volunteers at the ETHOS anti-trafficking workshops with a number of other local women, but her main focus is on her own daughter.
"When she's 13, 14, 15 I will be very worried about her," says Co. "I think the best way [to protect her] is just to let her go to study and she [won't] have a lot of time to go out."
Most of Co's peers also believe the solution is to keep their daughters at home.
"When you live in the village there are not many problems," says Co, "[but] when they go to the town to work … they go out a lot — nobody tells them don't go out or meet other people."
Awareness about bride trafficking is spreading in Lao Cai but there is still a long way to go — women and girls continue to disappear and most never come back.
Credits
- Words and photos by freelance correspondent Zoe Osborne
- Edited and produced by Annika Blau
Topics: women, womens-status, domestic-violence, human-trafficking, human, vietnam
First posted