men and their families created the market for North Korean slave-brides. But brides weren’t cheap, sometimes costing thousands of dollars, or the equivalent of a year’s earnings for a poor farmer. Of course, trafficking and slave marriages are illegal in China, and any children that result are not considered Chinese citizens. That means they cannot legally go to school, and without proper identification papers, can’t find work when they get older. Everything about trafficking is inhuman, but it’s still a big business in northeastern China.
