The Spatio-temporal Characteristics And Influencing Factors Of Child Trafficking In Southwest China

Due to its high profits and low risks,human trafficking has become one of the fastest growing and most profitable criminal activities worldwide.Children,with their low cognitive levels and lack of self-protection ability,are more vulnerable to being victimized by criminals.Child trafficking not only seriously damages the physical and mental health of the abducted children,but also has a devastating impact on their families,and even causes negative effects on social stability.Therefore,the study of characteristics and influencing factors of child trafficking has important practical guidance for combating and preventing such crimes.From the perspective of geography,research on child trafficking has mainly been conducted at the national or provincial level,with a lack of regional studies.Therefore,this study focuses on the southwestern region of China(Sichuan,Guizhou,and Yunnan provinces),where child trafficking is prevalent.This study crawled public platforms for information on missing children and established a criminal database.Standardized Crime Intensity Index,mathematical statistics,spatial econometric analysis,and other methods were used to extract the sociodemographic characteristics of trafficked children in the southwestern region of China,explore the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics and spatial evolution features of the crime,analyze the influencing factors of child trafficking.The main findings are as follows:(1)Sociodemographic characteristics: The study found that the kidnapped children in the Southwest China exhibit a trend of being younger in age,with infancy and early childhood being the peak periods of child trafficking.Moreover,the total number of kidnapped boys is significantly higher than that of girls,and the difference in the number of abducted boys and girls varies across different age groups.(2)Temporal distribution characteristics:(1)On the yearly scale,child trafficking crimes in the region exhibit a "left steep and right gentle" peak distribution with four periods: a period of low incidence(1949-1980),a period of rapid increase(1981-1990),a period of fluctuation and decline(1991-2005),and a period of low incidence again(2006-2021).(2)On the monthly and seasonal scales,the incidence of crimes fluctuates with the month and season.Crimes are more likely to occur in the months of June to August and less likely to occur in February and November.The summer is the high incidence season,while the winter is the low incidence season.(3)On the weekly and daily scales,there is no significant difference in the distribution of child trafficking crimes within the week,but the 1st of each month is a high incidence day.(3)Spatial distribution characteristics:(1)At the urban scale,child trafficking in the Southwest region exhibit an overall "east more,west less" distribution.The crime is more frequent in the provincial capitals and at the junction of Yunnan,Guizhou,and Sichuan provinces.(2)At the county level,hotspots of the crime appear in the surrounding counties of Nanchong and Suining in Sichuan,most counties in the eastern and central parts of Guizhou,and the tri-border area of Yunnan,Guizhou,and Sichuan,while cold spots occur in most counties in western Yunnan and Sichuan.(3)The Global Moran’s Index shows that there is spatial clustering of child trafficking at the county level in the Southwest China.The areas with high-high cluster distribution are mainly distributed in the eastern part of Sichuan Province,the central and eastern parts of Guizhou Province,and the border areas of Yunnan,Guizhou,and Sichuan provinces.The areas with low-low cluster distribution are mainly distributed in the western parts of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces,as well as the eastern part of Guizhou Province.(4)Spatial distribution characteristics:(1)There is spatial evolution of child trafficking crimes in the Southwest China.From 1989 to 1999,the crime rate increased in high and medium-high areas,while from 1999 to 2009,it decreased in high and medium-low areas.(2)The spatial hierarchy of child trafficking in Southwest China has also undergone changes.There are more cities in the low and high levels,and fewer cities in the medium-low and medium-high levels,indicating polarization of child trafficking in the region.The Markov Probability Matrix shows that there is mutual transformation among cities with four different levels,and low-level cities are the most stable,with a low probability of transferring to other levels.(3)The epicenter of child trafficking in Southwest China is located in Luzhou and Zhaotong cities,moving near the border of Yunnan,Guizhou,and Sichuan provinces,and the epicenter’s movement shows a characteristic of shifting southwest first and then northward.The standard deviation ellipse has a general "north-south" trend,covering mainly cities in eastern Sichuan,central and western Guizhou,and northeastern Yunnan.(5)Influential factors: The three factors most closely related to child trafficking in the Southwest China are the ratio of disposable income between urban and rural areas,population birth rate,and population gender ratio.This suggests that the main reasons for child trafficking are income disparity,attitudes towards childbirth,and population gender structure.