China’s 1979 one-child policy curbed population growth, but also led to unintended consequences: Countless baby girls were discarded by parents who preferred sons.
Some abandoned daughters were taken to rural areas like Putien in Southern China, where they were raised as foster children, or de-facto servants, and sometimes forced into marriages with their foster brothers.
Reflecting on the commodification of young lives, Cai Chenghua recalls how the baby broker didn’t just bring the babies “one by one – she put 4 to 6 in baskets and carried them with a shoulder pole”.
Since 2006, a volunteer group has been dedicated to reuniting abandoned daughters with their birth families through DNA testing.
The filmmakers worked meticulously to win the trust of these profiles, in order to gain access to their remarkable life stories of struggle and resilience.
While official numbers are non-existent, estimates put the number of child-fostered brides at between 30,000 and 100,000. Daughters of Putien ensures their voices are heard and their experiences not forgotten.
Mark Pestana
Deputy Chief Editor, CNA Documentaries Team
