Chinese police have handed over to their Vietnamese counterparts 21 women who were victims of traffickers who sent them to China illegally and sold them to brothels.

>> Human trafficking on the rise in Vietnam, police warn >> 12 sentenced for trafficking women to China The handover was conducted at the Thanh Thuy Border Gate in northern Ha Giang Province on Tuesday, between police from Yunnan province and the border guard command of Ha Giang. After receiving the women, Ha Giang authorities informed the women’s relatives of their return so that they can be picked up. The women are aged from 17 to 25, and are natives of Hanoi and seven northern provinces: Yen Bai, Lao Cai, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Phu Tho, Tuyen Quang, and Vinh Phuc.

Most of the victims said that they had been lured to China for well-paid work, but the people who had promised to find jobs for them sold them to whorehouses shortly after they were illegally taken into the country.

The brothels’ owners forced the women to work as prostitutes until they were detected and rescued by Chinese police, who recently conducted raids on border whorehouses.

In related news, police and border guard forces of central Nghe An and northern Quang Ninh provinces have jointly seized three human traffickers who were attempting to sell a woman into China.

On September 2, the forces captured Xeo Van Cam, a 27-year-old man from Nghe An, who was attempting to take a 20 year-old local woman across the border illegally.

Based on Cam’s testimony, the police later seized two accomplices in the human trafficking ring, Moong Van Uyen, a 28-year-old man, and Lu Thi Mai, a woman. Last month, the southern Tay Ninh Province People’s Court sentenced 12 defendants who had sold Vietnamese women to China as potential wives for Chinese men. Of these defendants, Tu Sy Muoi, 59, received the heaviest sentence, 14 years in jail, while the others were sentenced to terms from three years in suspension to 12 years in prison. From 2011 to July 2012, these traffickers sold 20 young Vietnamese women to China, where Chinese men who wanted to buy the women as wives had to pay VND80-100 million ($4,800) each. At a conference jointly held by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Hanoi on July 2, the ministry’s General Department for Crime Prevention and Control (GDCPC) warned that human trafficking in the country is becoming increasingly complex and international in nature. According to the GDCPC’s statistics, more than 3,200 human trafficking cases have been uncovered in Vietnam since 2005, involving 5,600 traffickers and 7,000 victims.