Bride broker crackdown
Published: 01/05/2011 05:00
Experts say more must be done to ensure the safety and welfare of local women looking to marry abroad
Last week, Qi Shui Hua, 38, walked into an upscale cafĂ© in District 6 expecting to review a parade of potential young brides. He would take one home, he thought, for a hefty fee. Instead, Hua had to fly back to China alone. On April 21, city police raided the cafĂ© and arrested Ha My Nga and Phu Duc Hang, the two women broking a marriage for Hua. The arrest signified the latest move in a nationwide crackdown on illegal marriage broker scams. A week earlier, Can Tho City police arrested three people suspected of having paid a justice department official a total of VND1.7 billion (US$81,281) in bribes to help expedite paperwork for local women looking to marry foreigners. The suspects include a local ward official in charge of birth, marriage and death records, a 49-year-old Korean-language instructor, and a 32-year-old man. The trio was accused of making illicit payments to Phan Thanh Dung, deputy head of the Judicial Administrative Section under the cityâs Justice Department last November. Dung is also in custody and remains under investigation for his alleged role in the scheme. Matter of money According to the Ministry of Justice, more than 257,000 Vietnamese married foreigners or Vietnamese residing overseas between 1995 and 2010ĂąÂÂover 80 percent of these individuals are women. Most of the foreign spouses are from Taiwan, the US, South Korea and China. At a conference in Can Tho held on April 22, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan instructed the ministries of public security, justice, and foreign affairs to cooperate on improving the laws protecting Vietnamese women married to foreigners. Despite legal improvements effected during the past five years, he noted, many marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men are conducted without love, knowledge of culture and language and awareness of their spousesâ family background and health conditions. At the conference, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Thanh Son said that marriages between Vietnam citizens and foreigners are Ă normal but need to be better managed. âConcerned agencies should do more to protect womenâs rights and improve relations with other countries in the meantime,â he said. A survey conducted by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, early this year, found that only seven percent of these couples married for love; the rest wed for financial reasons. Nearly 60 percent of marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men were arranged by illegal brokers, according to the study. Unprotected These services often provide potential brides with little information about their future spouses, according to a host of foreign researchers. Sociologists and womenâs rights advocates have claimed that many of these women never adapt to their new lives and more should be done to protect them. DaniĂšle BĂ©langer, a sociologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, has conducted extensive research on womenâs issues in Vietnam. BĂ©langer found that some young Vietnamese women want to marry abroad to avoid domestic violence at home. If Vietnam wants to clampdown on brides leaving the country, it should tackle this problem first and foremost. âDomestic violence is widespread in rural Vietnam and is accepted as a fact of life by many,â she told Thanh Nien Weekly via email. âThis is a problem⊠So fears of having a husband who does not work, drinks, gambles and who is violent actually pushed some young women to marry abroad.â At the same time, she said that many of these foreign marriages can be just as dangerous and problematic. BĂ©langer urged Vietnam to assist women in making healthy choices. âVietnam should empower women who enter international marriages by providing them with information, legal services and support,â she added. âThe phenomenon cannot be stopped by condemning it.â Hong-zen Wang, director of the Department of Sociology at Taiwanâs National Sun Yat-sen University, argued that the migration of Vietnamese women through marriage could help Vietnam improve transnational activities and generate remittances. âWomen who migrate abroad, whether for work or marriage, are emigrants in their own right and should be treated as such,â he said. Wang believes receiving countries should educate native husbands about Vietnamese history, gender roles and family systems. At the same time, he said, Vietnam should provide further information to departing women. In the short term, Hyunok Lee, a PhD candidate at Cornell Universityâs Department of Development Sociology, urged Vietnam to establish emergency relief for marriages that fail. BĂ©langer also warned against the hardships Vietnamese women face when returning home from unhappy marriages abroad. Some flee their adopted country and return home without having officially divorced. âTheir situation is very complex,â she said. âThey tend to be stigmatized and excluded. Much more needs to be done to address the needs of returnees and their children.â Reported by An Dien â Minh Hung |
Provide by Vietnam Travel
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