Kidnapping Brides for China

It has long been Chinese policy to limit families to one child. This policy was often looked upon kindly by liberals and socialists who bemoaned the growth of the human population and the strain that put on the environment and on resources. Many of the child-limited families choose to have a boy and abort or somehow lose girls. This leads to the obvious problem that there are ultimately far too few women for the young men who wish to be married. There are similar imbalances in some areas of India, owing more to a choice than a government mandate.

The Hmong people commonly live in small villages in the mountainous areas of Vietnam and Laos. One such area lies on the border with China. Kidnappers are now preying on young Hmong women and hijacking them across the border into China, where they are earning their kidnappers goodly fees as unwilling brides. [The Economist, 14 - 20 March] I suppose we are supposed to mark this up to unintended consequences of well-intended actions. How could anyone have anticipated that a one-child limit would result in a terrible imbalance of boys to girls? How could anyone anticipate that there would be many unhappy young males with nary a bride to be found?

Sometimes it is truly a wonderment that people can be so foolish.