The topic of "comfort women", women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, recently got a lot of publicity when the U.S. House of Representative passed a resolution on the topic.  But lesser known is the story of the thousands of Chinese women who were trafficked into prostitution and forced marriage in the early 1950s.  A new Chinese film, 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain, tells their story. 

In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Chinese government sent around 200,000 soldiers and 40,000 young women and girls to the far Western provinces of China, which at the time were heavily Muslim areas.  The communist government's goal was to marry off the girls to the army's officers (often arranged as a reward for service and seniority), and thus populate the region with the children of patriots and communists, who would soon outnumber the Muslims.  The women were claimed via force, deception, and coercion and then forced to marry whichever officer chose them.   Some were brainwashed and convinced they were doing a patriotic duty to create a "new China" for their children.

 Xiao Yequn was 15 when she was first brought to the military camp.  First, she refused to marry the significantly older man she had been assigned to.

When I found out he was nine years older than me I was unwilling to be his wife.  He immediately took out his pistol and put a bullet in the chamber. I dared not resist and the next year we got married.

Simultaneously, Chairman Mao was ordering women in prostitution to be sent in forced service to Chinese troops to undergo "thought reform."  The accounts of rape, suicide, forced marriage, forced prostitution, and other abuses from the survivors of this period of Chinese history are not terribly unlike those of the Japanese and Korean comfort women.  Yet, the plight of these trafficked Chinese women is much less understood or publicized.  Perhaps the lack of information on this issue is due to the Chinese government's reluctance to examine historical (and current) human rights violations. 

While it is unclear exactly how 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain will address the issue, it will hopefully bring a better understanding of the experience of women trafficked into forced marriage in China to Chinese and international audiences.  And more importantly, it will hopefully bring a greater sense of peace and justice to the women who survived the ordeal.  

 Image from theonlinephotographer.typepad.com