Prison of Flesh: A Tragic Song of Women in Modern-Day Northern Myanmar

Xiaomeng jolted awake as the chains dragged her along. The air was thick with a cloying, bloody stench. Beyond the iron cage, a woman was pinned to a metal frame, her nipples hooked up to milking tubes as milk mixed with beads of blood and dripped down. This was no “great job paying eight thousand a month,” as her classmate had claimed. It was a living hell deep in northern Myanmar. Women who fought back were silenced by the guillotine, while those who couldn't produce milk were thrown into black bags. Even the unborn child in a woman's belly was treated as a bargaining chip for a “qualified milk supply.” When a former classmate sneered at her from beyond the iron door and “Big A” ran his greasy fingers across her cheek, fear finally exploded as she watched a baby boy tossed away like trash. She clutched the shards of glass Hongmei had slipped her. At the moment she met A Cui's eyes, the despair that had settled over the cage began to rust and burn. Outside the factory, the location on the social media account Lili had hacked was blinking. The transaction records Zhen Ting had photographed concealed the transport route, while a masked hand picked up the missing-person flyers her parents had scattered in the rain. When the doors to the international press conference burst open, Xiaomeng raised her evidence just as the bodyguards' footsteps rang out. This revolt, paved with flesh and blood, had only just torn open the first crack in the evil.