Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Vietnam: Marriage Brokers

From Viet Nam News:
According to statistics by the General Statistics Office, between 2005 and 2008, 32,000 Vietnamese women married foreigners, mostly Chinese, Taiwanese and South Korean.

Meanwhile, statistics by the South Korean's Statistics Office show that, the number of Korean men marrying Vietnamese women increased from 134 in 2001 to 5,822 in 2005.

According to Ho Xuan Huy from the Viet Nam International Organisation for Migration (IOM), most foreign marriages are arranged through marriage brokers.

"These agencies earn their fees by enticing Vietnamese women with false information about their future husbands," Huy said.

Many women are then forced to become servants for their husbands' families and made to work hard and sometimes even hit, according to a report by the IOM.

Lack of knowledge among Vietnamese women living in rural areas and a lack of adequate regulations on foreign marriages are problems that need to be addressed to tackle the issue, according to Quy.

Le Thi Hoang Thanh, from the Institute of Legal Science of the Ministry of Justice, said that Viet Nam did not have any systems in place to provide information to citizens who wish to marry foreigners. There are also no regulations for the protection of Vietnamese women who choose to settle in their foreign husbands' country, as no agreements have been reached for Vietnamese women's rights abroad.

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