30 Year Old One Child Policy Has Nasty Kick Back Effect

China's thirty year old one-child policy has led to a traditional preference for boys, as they are thought to be more useful on the farm, able to take care of the parents when they are old and eligible to receive an inheritance. "It doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you don't have a son, you are not as good as other people who have one", a 38 year-old Chinaman said.

The policy caused girl children to be unwanted and regularly disposed of, or abandoned. Enforced abortion and sterilization became a normal part of life.

From 1971-80 800,000 girl babies were abandoned or killed, in a single region. This number must be multiplied by a further two generations and a dozen or more other areas, skyrocketing the number of missing girls to the tens of millions. While the population planning may have lowered the growth explosion by a massive 250 million, it comes with an horrendous price tag.

China now has one of the largest male-to-female ratios in the world. The 2005 census discovered a surplus of 32 million males under the age of 25. That's almost the entire population of Canada.

This has led to intense competition for the few single females that are available, particularly in rural areas, where it is looked upon as being a thing of disgrace if a man is left unmarried after the age of 24. The situation has created a sharp increase in the price of brides. This has in turn led to a phenomenon known as the 'Runaway Brides', or 'Bride Scam', which is believed to be part of a wider criminal ring.

Potential brides will suddenly turn up in rural areas (visiting friends) where there are no available females. The girls submit themselves to the process of getting married and accept the bride price, which can be as high as 38,000 yuan, (around $5,500), or almost five years earnings from a farm.

The girls' residential papers and identity usually check out. Within only days a marriage union can be registered at the local registrar's office. This is followed by a wedding banquet, where the groom's mother formally hands over the bride price. The bride money is frequently borrowed and scraped up from other members of the family.

The new bride then moves into the in-laws home and it would seem as if 'happy families' are about to commence. In a very short time however, the bride disappears – taking the dowry money with her. Often several 'brides' become available in one region, only to all disappear at exactly the same time – with their dowries, leaving the briefly married grooms to pine away, in their loveless rural life.

Across the Burmese border, girls young as only ten years of age are trafficked into China as child brides. Many of the girls are sold, into their very uncertain future, by either their brother, or father.