"Barbarian Women" on the Riverbank: Ethnicity, Prostitution, and Human Trafficking in Qing Southwest China

This paper aims to reveal a hidden commercial network that involved abduction and forced prostitution of ethnic minority women, including underage girls, in southwest China during the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). It will highlight how bureaucratic control (gaitu guiliu), regional imbalances, and gender inequality contributed to turning women from the southwestern borderlands into highly profitable commodities. Meanwhile, the article will indicate that Chongqing, Sichuan Province emerged as a major hub for human trafficking and sex trafficking in southwest China. On the north bank of the Jialing River, there was even a place known as the “Barbarians’ Camp” where a large number of ethnic minority women were sold and forced into prostitution. Despite the the legislations and campaigns by the Qing central and local governments to outlaw and combat human trafficking, this practice was never completely eradicated and was even tolerated with tacit approval. By drawing from both central and local government archives, this article also seeks to restore the life experiences and voices of women who fell victim to human trafficking and forced prostitution. Furthermore, it will explore how issues of gender and sexuality can be integrated into the study of late imperial China’s empire-building, frontier policies, and ethnic dynamics.