The one child rule has fuelled a slave trade, with female children as young as eight snatched for sale. Andrew Alderson and Lena Kara report.
At the market - a heaving mass of desperate souls - lascivious men eye up teenage girls. Two ramshackle sheds the size of aircraft hangars are crammed with young women, many with crude signs at their feet advertising their skills.
The girls are cooks, maids and seamstresses but many of the buyers are after a human commodity: a wife and servant who will satisfy their every need. Chengdu market in western China is the centre of a growing trade in female slaves.
An investigation by The Telegraph has revealed that an estimated 50,000 girls and young women, some as young as eight, have been sold or abducted into human slavery in China. The trade is largely the result of the nation's "one child policy", which has led to a shortage of young women and millions...