HUONG was only 15 when she went out to meet a friend in Lao Cai, a city in northern Vietnam on the Chinese border (see map).
She thought she would be gone a few hours, but it was three years before she managed to return home.
Her friend had brought with her two acquaintances—young men with motorcycles.
Bring sb with sth 给某人带来了什么
故此句可译为“她的朋友带来了两个熟人——骑着摩托的年轻小伙子”
They squired the girls around town and took them to a karaoke bar, where their drinks were spiked.
squire n侍从，护卫
此处活用为动词（不知为何好几部字典都没有查到其有动词义项），表示陪伴，陪同之意
When the girls grew drowsy they were hoisted back onto the bikes, each sandwiched between two male riders.
这是一个画面感很强的句子。大家可以自行想象一下，姑娘疲倦了之后就被架回车上，如同三明治一样夹在两名男子之间
drowsy a.昏昏欲睡的
be hoisted back onto 原意译为吊回，此处可意译，便于理解。
They were driven into the hills and across the Chinese border to a remote house in the countryside. There they were told they would be sold.
The girls screamed and cried but were subdued by two men, one of them wielding a stick.
get/be subdued by 被xx所征服
The traffickers told Huong that by crossing the border she had sullied her reputation, but that if she behaved well they would find her a Chinese husband.
After marrying she might find a way home, they said. If she refused she would stay stranded in the hills.
sully vt. 玷污，损坏名声 sullied her reputation
Huong—a pseudonym, to protect her identity—is now 20 years old.
She lives in a large bungalow in Lao Cai, which she shares with a dozen women aged between 15 and 24 (an occupant is pictured).
They are all survivors of trafficking networks that smuggle girls across the Vietnam-China border, sometimes to be sold as prostitutes but more often as brides. Their house, with its enormous teddy bears and fleet of fuchsia-pink bicycles, is a shelter run by Pacific Links Foundation, an American charity, which helps victims finish their education and cope with their trauma.
Around the world some 15m people are living in marriages into which they were forced, including some who were abducted, according to a recent study by the International Labour Organisation, a UN body, and human-rights groups.
abduct vt. 诱拐; 劫持; 使外展;
In China the trafficking of women is particularly acute, in part because a preference for sons has left the country with a severely skewed sex ratio.
skewed v. 歪曲( skew的过去式和过去分词 ); 曲解; 使不公允; 影响…的准确性;
这句有的说:"在中国，这种拐卖妇女的行为尤其严重，部分是因为重男轻女的思想留给了中国一个极其不平衡的男女比例"
Between 1979 and 2015 the imbalance was aggravated by a one-child-per-couple policy, which prompted many to abort females before they were born. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has estimated that by 2020 there will be 30m-40m Chinese men who will be unable to find wives in their own country.
One consequence of this is booming business for matchmakers who offer to import women from China’s poorer neighbours, particularly Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Mongolia and North Korea. Some of these women, seeking a route out of poverty at home, freely choose a Chinese marriage and gain the necessary approvals. But along China’s borders, kidnapping is rife.
The stories told by trafficking survivors and Vietnamese officials in Lao Cai shed light on this grim trade.
shed light on 为...提供线索;对…透露情况;使…清楚地显出
=provide evidence for sth
"由老街当地的越南官员以及遭遇贩卖事件之后的幸存者讲述的故事，揭开了这桩险恶的交易的面纱"
Each year between 100 and 150 trafficked Vietnamese women return to their country through the town’s border gate, says an official there—probably only a small proportion of the total who are lured or abducted the other way. Some of the victims’ ordeals begin when, like Huong, they are drugged or kidnapped.
ordeal nc.严峻的考验，苦难的经历
Others are duped into thinking they are going to a party or to meet a potential boyfriend. Sometimes members of their own families are complicit.
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