Beef up border vigil to end 'bride trade'

The abductions of Vietnamese women by "matrimonial agencies" to get them married to Chinese men have become a sore point for China. The "matrimonial agents" get handsomely paid for "introducing" the abducted Vietnamese women to Chinese bachelors desperate for a wife regardless of her nationality, making the marriages a brutal violation of human rights and criminal law. Such cases are nothing but human trafficking.

Most of the "agencies" don't have licenses to provide matchmaking services, and even if some of them do, abducting women (or for that matter anyone) is still a crime, for which all the "agencies" and "agents" should be prosecuted according to China's criminal law on human trafficking.

There is a twist here, though. Some "agents" or "brokers" - on both sides of the China-Vietnam border - conspire with the "abducted women" to defraud unknowing Chinese men by arranging for the "brides" to escape after they receive their "bride payment". This makes the cases more complicated, because they involve kidnapping and human trafficking, as well as fraud committed by the kidnappers and their "hostages". In such cases, the abductors and hostages both should be brought to justice.