Tharanga Yakupitiyage, United Nations correspondent for IPS News, a global agency focused on social and political analysis in the Global South, writes about a Chinese citizen reporting to Human Rights Watch of witnessing a trafficked woman running from her newlywed “husband.” This escape attempt resulted in the husband tying her neck and dragging her behind a motorbike in violent retaliation (Tharanga Yakupitiyage 2019). Sights like these are not unique, foreign brides fall into poverty and low income due to converging social crises in Myanmar. Dr. Alvin Hoi-Chun Hung, a Postdoctoral Fellow from the Australian National University, writes that they are then vulnerable to being trafficked because of social factors that contribute to impacted employment, education, and humanitarian aid devastation from domestic conflict (Hung 2021). Human Rights Watch, prolific international non-governmental reporting organization on human rights violations, writes that people outside Myanmar displacement camps struggle with low employment, wages, education, and the social devastation resulting from decades of conflict (Human Rights Watch 2019). Conversely, China’s marital barriers for single males have incentivized trafficking of foreign brides. Hung argues that hefty bridewealth payments and the enduring gender gap from China’s former one-child policy have resulted in trafficking becoming socially normalized because China's lack of brides makes imported brides needed. Traffickers then use bride trafficking as a mechanism to facilitate coerced marriage (Hung 2021). Both agree that each country's social conditions have mutually contributed to the trafficking crisis, but Human Rights Watch explains how the conditions in Myanmar have led to desperation, whereas Hung explains how the conditions in China have incentivized trafficking in the first place. Trafficking across the China-Myanmar border is the consequence of societal issues plaguing Myanmar, China, and lastly the border itself, which all contribute to their ongoing bride trafficking crisis.

First, the situation within Myanmar. The Myanmar rebel military coups and civil wars along with low economic output have converged into social and geopolitical unrest. Leiden University Master of Laws, Vanessa Cordeiro, discusses how these conflicts have resulted in blockages of humanitarian aid to affected regions in Myanmar, perceived as rebel strongholds. Limited employment opportunities make it difficult for women who are often family breadwinners while their husbands take part in these armed conflicts. Traffickers then exploit desperate citizens with the promise of wealth and freedom (Cordeiro 2022). Cordeiro points out one that of the causes of bride trafficking is how Myanmar’s social conditions, in the form of humanitarian blockage and wage stagnation, have forced women into desperate economic situations. Thus, a unified border control could help mitigate the negative effects of trafficking, however, these fixes are superficial and don’t first address the conflicts within Myanmar that render women susceptible to human traffickers. However, Human Rights Watch mentions a separate contributor to trafficking from Cordeiro, the police tasked with preventing trafficking themselves. When Myanmar authorities make arrests, they often only target the initial brokers in Myanmar and not the rest of the networks in China. Further, police in China rarely arrest people who knowingly bought trafficked “brides” and abused them (Human Rights Watch 2019). A unified border control could mitigate the effects of police tolerance to traffickers, as arresting traffickers would no longer exclusively be under police control, but instead, trained border inspectors who are trained and hired to detain illegal border smugglers. Thus, while a unified border control can’t remediate all causes of bride desperation in Myanmar, it can circumvent the issues of police tolerance for traffickers by moving the responsibility of arresting traffickers from police to a professional border control team.

Secondly, the situation in China. Chinese society has normalized human trafficking due to social normalities that have created a high demand and low supply of brides. June Lee, senior writer for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, writes that with less endowment of pecuniary strength, some socially and economically underprivileged and unmarried Chinese men can choose to either purchase a foreign bride or inevitably remain single (Lee, 2005). Lee’s observation that the marital depression of single men in China caused by social norms, such as mandated bridewealth payments and China’s former one-child policy, has created the incentive to prey on the desperation of Myanmar women. These are deep social flaws that simply increasing border control cannot mend. Graduate of the College of Criminal Justice and China Eastern University of Political Science and Law, Geping Qiu, says additional explanations are necessary to account for the post-marriage violence and sexual abuse imposed on ill-fated trafficked brides. Intimate partner violence is a principal issue in the examination of bride trafficking in China (Qiu et al., 2019). Lee says that single males in China are pushed to traffic foreign brides, whereas Qiu says this social demand for foreign brides can’t explain the husbands excessive sexual assault and cruelty. Despite the two sources' different views on social issues within China, both would agree that unified border control isn’t necessary as a solution to China’s social flaws broadly, which is why Chinese men traffick Myanmar brides. Unified border control won’t solve the domestic violence against trafficked brides or deeper social normalities such as bridewealth payments that incentivize trafficking. 

Lastly, the border China-Myanmar border itself is rife with issues that a border control could potentilly remediate. Human Rights Watch argues a porous border and lack of response to trafficking by law enforcement agencies on both sides created an environment in which traffickers flourish, abducting Kachin women and girls and selling them in China as “brides” with near impunity (Human Rights Watch 2019). Thus, a border control could make up for the lack of federal regulation around border security, replacing the current porous border control. Further, a unified border control could catch criminals before they even cross checkpoints. However, it does end the social cause of trafficking attempts in the first place. Myanmar Now, a Myanmar-based news service specializing in reports on Southeast Asian societal impacts including corruption, child labor, human rights, and social justice, writes that the Myanmar border closure during the pandemic created a desperate situation for thousands of Myanmar migrants abroad, especially in Thailand, with at least 2.3 million stranded or displaced. This closure left the Myanmar migrants without incomes, and while a patchwork of migrant aid groups are trying to help them make ends meet, but aid groups are finding themselves stretched thin, with migrants trying to make it freely back home (Myanmar Now 2020). This shows the potential drawbacks to a border-securitizing approach to trafficking prevention, as it can exacerbate the root incentives that contribute to trafficking in the first place, such as overly stretched humanitarian aid, rising unemployment, and lack of income. 

The conditions both in China and Myanmar have bred a social situation rife for bride trafficking. Despite these issues, a unified border control would not solve the deeper problems of trafficking. However, even if it cannot stop all trafficking attempts, a unified government-overseen border control may be a worthwhile step towards ending the crisis since it may expose trafficking attempts before they succeed. Looking towards the future, to end trafficking solutions should focus on addressing these deeper structural flaws in addition to a border control. Amending social policies and normalities that breed citizen desperation for brides, such as China’s expensive bridewealth payments, are a crucial part to solving the crisis as well. Other solutions that could also work to counteract these social flaws are punishing stigmatizing police conduct or even subsidizing bride wealth payments. By implementing these solutions along with a border control, it would counter trafficking three-fold by preventing Myanmar women from being vulnerable to trafficking, removing the incentives for Chinese men to traffic brides, and arresting them at the border if all else fails. Border control cannot solve these deeper issues alone, so tackling the root of trafficking across the China-Myanmar border will require this deeper societal shift as well.