"Successful textile co-op in Vietnam village buoys female trafficking victims."

"More than a decade ago, human traffickers descended on the seemingly forgotten slice of soaring limestone crags and lush valleys to snatch up women and children and sell them over the border in China."

"The first predators arrived in Hop Tien in 2003, offering in seemingly innocent tones to buy some young women new shoes. Then the women disappeared. Soon others vanished, too, all between the ages of 16 and 22, to be sold as wives, forced laborers or sex workers."

"After villagers reported the abductions, the Vietnamese authorities collaborated with Chinese officials to find the women and bring them home."

"But residents' elation lurched to horror at the realization that two of the women wee pregnant. News quickly spread that the others, too, had been made sex workers, and even those who did not bear the signs of the trade paid its price."