TC 10:00:00Costly wedding At the Garden Hotel in Sichuan province a schoolteacher is marrying a postal clerk –this show of luxury would never have been seen in Mao’s day. In today’s China getting married is a costly business – many husbands also have to pay a ‘bride price’, a fee to the wife’s parents. But there’s a sinister, cut-price option – buying a woman who’s been kidnapped to be sold as a bride. It’s an ancient practice abolished by the communists – and now it’s back with a vengeance. The government says that in five years 88,000 kidnapped wives have been rescued – the evidence suggests this is just the tip of the iceberg.
TC 10:Dean Set-up
A leading independent economist believes China’s new market economy fuels the trade.
TC 10:Dean Sync.ASTON: Dean PengIndependent EconomistEnglish (voice underlay until TC 10:)“Some poor areas like Xanxi and Inner Mongolia, the situation for them is that to buy a wife is less expensive than to get a local marriage, and this economic, the difference in prices encourages people to buy.
TC 10:Meet Zhu
This is Zhu Wenguang. He’s a private detective, one of China’s new breed of entrepreneurs.But Zhu’s business is unique - from his base in Sichuan province he’s tracked down and released over one hundred kidnapped brides.
TC 10:Sync ZhuASTON: Zhu WenguangPrivate Detective“Usually when they see me they start crying, ‘uncle bring me back, I can’t suffer any longer’.”
TC 10:Zhu driving
Zhu claims his failure rate is under one per cent. But he’s now on the way to begin a case, which as we’ll see, stretches even him to the limit.
TC 10:Zhan’s hamlet
From this hamlet in rural Sichuan the trail will lead us over a thousand miles away, to Inner Mongolia. Here Zhu’s meeting a man who’s wife, Wang, was abducted five years ago, when she went to the local market.
TC 10:Zhan and compound - potatoes Zhan, who’s a poor farmer, reported Wang’s abduction to the police. They did nothing. It’s taken years but now the family’s scraped together enough money to call in Zhu to bring her back.
TC 10:Sync ZhanASTON: Zhan ShiyueHusband of abducted woman“I want her back so that she can cook and take care of the children. Since she has gone I have been both father and mother…It makes me sad” (HE WEEPS)
TC 10:ID Card, letter All Zhan has left to remind him of his wife, is her old ID card and a letter smuggled out from Inner Mongolia three years ago. It was a cry for help – she said she been sold as bride, she couldn’t understand her husband’s dialect, and had no money and no way out.
TC 10:Zhu talks to Zhan Inner Mongolia’s a distant land, and they all know the journey to rescue Wang will be hard. But Zhan’s determined to go. Zhu gets payment on results, but the expenses of the trip have still to be met. Fortunately Zhan’s daughter Lian has saved enough by working in a nearby town.
For Zhu and his assistant organising the journey to Inner Mongolia isn’t easy. But Zhu feels uniquely committed to this case.
TC 10:ASTON: Zhu Wenguang Private detective“Of all my cases, this is a very special one. The daughter was twelve when her mother was abducted. She left school to work hard to collect money to rescue her mother. She’s now 18. I was moved by her determination.”
TC 10:Ping set-up
This is one of Zhu’s success stories. At sixteen Yang Xiu Ping was kidnapped and sold as a bride Years later Zhu freed her. She’s now remarried and has a baby girl – but her story reveals the kind of horrors Zhan’s wife may be suffering.
TC 10:Sync PingASTON: Yang Xiu Ping Freed Woman “I didn’t want him. His sister-in-law locked me in with him. I refused him. But he raped me.”
TC 10:Close up on Ping’s eyes Captive wives will do anything to escape their misery.
TC 10:Sync Ping“When I escaped they caught me and beat me up. Afterwards they threatened me - ‘If you escape again we will cut your Achilles tendon like the others, so that you never escape again.”“Later I drank pesticide and I was sent to hospital.” “After that I cut my wrists.”
TC 10:Chengdu
Chengdu, the regional metropolis. Ping and thousands like her went missing here.
TC 10:Nine Eye Bridge, music
This is the Nine Eye Bridge, China’s biggest labour market. Every year millions of country girls like Ping stream into the cities in search of work. They’re easy prey for the kidnappers. It’s estimated that thirty women are abducted from the Nine Eye Bridge labour market every day.
TC 10:Tang set-up
TC 10:NOTE: IT IS VITAL TO USE GRAPHICS TO OBSCURE THE FACE OF THIS MAN. HE MUST BE UNRECOGNISABLE. ASTON: ‘Tang’Former abductor“I used to trick them – make them my girlfriend – tell them we’re going on a tour together – then I sold them.“As I’d already pre-arranged the deal, I brought the women to the house of a middle-man. The buyer came to this middle-man’s house and negotiated the price with him. I got paid by the middle-man – I didn’t know how much the woman was sold for.” We found one former kidnapper. He used to sell each girl for a few hundred pounds.
TC 10:Car journey It takes five days to drive from Sichuan to Inner Mongolia. In the car with Zhu are Zhan and his daughter Lian.She hasn’t seen her mother for five years and she’s come along to help draw her mother back to Zhan. They’ve staked everything on this one trip to rescue her. They know it’s their only chance.
TC 10:Inner Mongolia, bleak and music The province of Inner Mongolia is like another world to them.
It’s a far cry from fertile Sichuan. Here working the land is a desperate business.
Many abducted women are held in villages like this. Lian’s mother Wang has been kept in such conditions for five years. These are closed – even gated communities. These people don’t like outsiders.
TC 10:Hotel room Zhu, Zhan and Lian set up base in a hotel in a nearby town. . Zhu has to work through the local police. After initial contacts he tells Lian that the police have agreed to bring her mother back from the village so that they can take her home next day.
TC 10:Sync Zhu“I have 80 per cent certainty. First because her daughter is grown up and has come to rescue her mother herself. Secondly, because she wrote a letter asking her family to rescue her.”
first hotel seq continued
TC 10:Leaving hotel Next morning they leave for a town called Guyang. There they hope to find Wang safely at the police station.
TC 10:Guyang We could not go to Guyang police station ourselves – the kidnapping trade is classified a sensitive issue, and especially since the police are involved, filming is strictly forbidden.
TC 10:Walking back They return in defeat. They haven’t even seen Wang. The police told them she has had a baby with her new ‘husband’ and because of this refuses to go home to Sichuan. The fact that Wang was illegally kidnapped and sold seems to make no difference.The family simply cannot believe she would choose to remain here – finally deserting them.
TC 10:Dejected hotel room seq They’re stunned. And since Lian has spent all her savings, they may not even have enough money to get home again. Zhu’s pride has taken a big dent. He believes the villagers are being protected by the police, who are more interested in not stirring up trouble in the local community than saving kidnapped women.
TC 10:Zhu sync explaining defeat“I’ve been rescuing abducted women for many years, so I know without the co-operation of the local police we can do nothing. We’re very likely to be attacked so we decided to withdraw.”
TC 10:Lian defeated ASTON: Zhan Lian HuaDaughter“Whether you’ve a good mother or a bad mother, it’s always better than no mother at all. When my mother was taken my sister was only three. I had to work at the age of thirteen to help bring my mother back.”
TC 10:End seq : Government campaign China’s government is committed to stamping out the trade in abducted women. Nevertheless many policemen and ordinary people here believe it’s best to leave those who buy the kidnapped women alone.
TC 10:ASTON: Dean PengIndependent economist(English)“I think this is very similar to the case of hijacking. If you compromise to the hijackers, maybe you solve this case peacefully, but this will encourage a lot of potential future hijackers. So the only way to solve the hijacking problem is to say no to hijackers forever. And I think that is the same case with abduction.”
TC 10:End seq - family in despair in hotel
But for Lian - a thousand miles from home and after all her hard work and expense - the only sign of her mother, Wang, is still only an old ID card. Sign off
TC 10:ENDS