3 rescued from 'wife traffickers'

TWO girls and a woman were rescued from a gang planning to sell them as wives in neighboring Jiangsu Province, local police said yesterday.

A 12-year-old girl and her 15-year-old cousin were found by officers in a hotel in Xuhui District. The woman was located in a village in Jiangsu.

Eight men were detained by officers for alleged human trafficking offences dating back 10 years.

Police said they saw the girls taken into a hotel on Shilong Road in Xuhui by three middle-aged men on June 16.

During a spot check by police, the three men claimed to be relatives of the girls. However, they were unable to give even the names of the girls parents.

The girls, surnamed Xu, aged 15, and 12-year-old Huang told police they were looking for jobs to support their families in Yunnan Province. The three men, also Yunnan natives, had promised them work in Shanghai.

But the cousins realized they had been misled after they arrived in the city on June 13 and were illegally held by the gang.

The girls said they arrived at the Shanghai South Railway Station with the three men and another woman. Two men showed up and left with the woman, who they believed was also a victim of the human traffickers.

Police said investigations showed the two girls and the woman were "purchased" from the traffickers as wives by a man, surnamed Li, in Jiangsu Province.

On June 18, the woman was rescued from Li in a remote town in Jiangsu.

The other members of the human trafficking gang were caught the next day in Jiangsu, police said. Li was also detained.

The parents of the girls were reunited with their daughters in Shanghai.

The case is still under investigations, police said.

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