Two of three Vietnamese girls sold to China nearly four years ago have escaped and returned home, exposing the traffickers who were apprehended by police this week.

Police in Nghe An Province said on Tuesday that they had arrested locals Ven Thi Mao, 29, and Cut Thi Thong, 29, and would investigate their alleged trafficking of children under 16 years old.

Mao is in detention while Thong has been granted bail, but barred from leaving her place ofresidence, given she is raising an infant under three years old.

According to initial investigations, Mao and Thong worked together between 2014 and 2015 to deliver three local teenage girls to China, where they were sold for up to VND100 million (US$4,400) each.

Their victims were L.T.H. (born in 1999), C.T.S. (born in 2000), and C.T.C. (born in 2001), all of whom were residents of Bao Nam Commune in Ky Son District.

The girls were bought by Chinese men who made them their wives.

Two of the victims recently managed to break free from their ‘husbands’ and returned home to expose the crimes of Mao and Thong, leading to their arrests.

According to the United Nations, nearly 21 million people are lured into forced labor every year worldwide and 1.2 million children are trafficked. A third of trafficked women and children are from Southeast Asia.

In Vietnam, reports of 1,128 trafficking cases were made in 2016, but only around half of them were rescued.

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