6 Years Gone: Myanmar woman escapes brutal China captivity
GUCHENG, China — They were the first photos Marip Lu had ever taken of her son, and it broke her heart to think they might be the last.
The little boy was standing in their living room in rural China with his tiny chest puffed out, brown eyes beaming as he watched cartoons on TV. She wanted to remember him this way — smiling, playful, innocent.
Just three years old, he had no idea his mother was facing a heart-wrenching choice that would change their lives: stay with him and the family holding her hostage, or leave him behind and be free.
Six years earlier, Marip Lu had been drugged, kidnapped and trafficked to this place far from her native Myanmar. She had been beaten and abused, forced to “marry” a mentally disabled man, and repeatedly raped, she said.