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In total, 1,332 suspects have been detained, accused of organising 126 fraudulent marriages and falsely obtaining marriage, employment, or tourist visas – as in Monika’s case – to bring victims into the country.

Monika, who did not want to give her last name for fears it would compromise her safety, recounted why she had agreed to the marriage.

‘I was forced to sell my body in a Hong Kong bar’

She only completed the early years of secondary school and does not speak English or Chinese, only Indonesian.

“The matchmaker told me that I would live a good life in China, and that I would be able to send money to my parents and that my husband would give me an allowance,” she said.

“She also said that I would be able to return home and visit my parents any time.”

After their first meeting, Monika decided to accept the matchmaker’s offer and went to the city of Singkawang, about 150km away from her hometown, several days later.

There, she met two men from China and was told to pick one as her future beau. She chose the younger man who was aged 28, she said, and they spent two hours talking with the help of a translator.

The next day, they met at a beauty salon where she had a makeover. The couple exchanged rings, signed marriage documents in Indonesian and Chinese and posed for a photo.

She received 18 million rupiah as a dowry, with 1 million of that going to the matchmaker. A week later, she was on a plane to China.

Monika said that despite signing the documents, she only thought she had got engaged and that a wedding would follow.

In China, thousands of Myanmar women are forced into childbirth

But once she moved into the family’s home, she realised she had been lied to. Her husband did not make 10 million rupiah a month, as she had been told, but earned considerably less in his job as a construction worker.

Every day, from 7am to 7pm, she was forced to make paper flowers for her new mother-in-law to sell. The older woman punished her for perceived transgressions by hiding food and denying Monika access to the internet, removing her ability to contact family and friends.

For 10 months, she lived in China on a tourist visa with her passport, and all her wages, kept by her mother-in-law. Once, during winter, she was forced to sleep outside after asking when she would be allowed to visit home.

“My mother-in-law is a scary person, I am still traumatised when I think about her to this day,” Monika said. “Just the sight of her from afar is enough to terrify me.”

She eventually escaped by hailing a taxi to the local police station after learning how to say she wanted to go there in Mandarin from a friend online.

The officer on the front desk lent her his phone to call the Indonesian embassy in Beijing, she said.

Oky Wiratama, a lawyer at the Jakarta-based Legal Aid Institute, described what had happened to Monika as “clearly” human trafficking.

“These women were recruited with the promise of a happy married life and the targets were underprivileged women. Once the victims arrived in China, they were exploited, the money promised to their family in Indonesia was not transferred, and they were not given any money at all.”

Abroad, alone, and abused: the plight of trafficked brides in China

Earlier this month, after being alerted to Monika’s case, police raided a house in Pontianak believed to belong to the matchmakers’ Indonesian supervisor. The operation uncovered a further 60 women who were set to be flown to China and married off to men who had paid up to 400 million rupiah (US$28,276) each – the bulk of which went to the matchmakers, according to the Legal Aid Institute.

On Saturday, Monika arrived back in Jakarta, after what she described as 10 “tear-filled” months. Her marriage has been annulled.

“I’m so relieved that I didn’t have children with him, what would happen to my kids if their father is a wife beater and their grandmother is abusive?” she said.

“I was so depressed in China that I turned into this crazy person, I cried every day until midnight. Now I just want to get a job to keep my siblings in school. Marriage is the furthest thing from my mind.”

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