Arrests in high-profile Mandalay teenager trafficking case

22 December 2019
Arrests in high-profile Mandalay teenager trafficking case
A young woman passes by a billboard campaign to human trafficking in Yangon. Photo: Mizzima

Police officials says arrests have been made in the case of a teenager trafficked in late November by a relative from a tea shop in Mandalay and taken to a town along the border with China, though authorities say they have yet to find the victim, according to a report by RFA.

The police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force team No. 11 in Mandalay announced the arrests a couple of weeks after RFA’s Myanmar Service broke the story, which is said to have reached millions of viewers on Facebook.

According to RFA, the 14-year-old from Kin village in Mingon township, Sagaing region, was trafficked to Muse in northern Shan state by an aunt who abducted her in Mandalay, where the girl worked.

A video posted on a Facebook page used by Myanmar migrant workers in China on November 26 shows the girl crying and describes her as being forcibly brought into the country.

The police say three men have been arrested in the case but the suspects claim they do not know where the girl is. 

The girl is with the group of migrant workers who are said to have rescued her, according to the police. 

The trafficking of women and girls to China is said to be a serious problem. Many are sold as brides or into the sex industry.