The ministries of public security, justice, and foreign affairs need to act together and improve laws protecting Vietnamese women married to foreigners, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said Friday.

 

Despite the legal improvements effected over the past five years, many marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men are conducted without love, knowledge of culture and language, awareness of their spouses’ family background and health conditions, Nhan said at a conference held in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho.

 

Illegal marriage brokerage is still happening in the country, he added.

 

Such marriages have become a trend, with many young women motivated more by economic than other considerations, deputy minister of justice Dinh Trung Tung said at the meeting.

 

Nguyen Thanh Hoa, deputy minister of labor, agreed with Tung, saying that many women in the countryside were seeking marriage with foreigners to get out of poverty and support their families.

 

According to the Ministry of Justice, since 1995 more than 257,000 Vietnamese have got married to foreigners or Vietnamese residing overseas, and over 80 percent of them are women.

 

Most of the foreign spouses are from South Korea and Taiwan, the ministry said.