Marriage With a Foreigner
by Dong He
A new trend is increasing among the wealthy nations in Asia where desperate bachelors in South Korea and Taiwan seek wives by looking outside their national boundaries for marriage. And there are no shortages of women in developing neighboring countries willing to marry out of poverty. Many young women between the ages of 18 and 25 in Vietnam marry foreign men with the hope of escaping destitution and starting new lives; since 1998, over 85,000 Vietnamese women have married foreigners, mainly Koreans and Taiwanese, and more than half do so illegally. Television and movies depict the glamorous life in well-furnished homes where women find true love with their new husbands, and make this dream seem attainable by everyone. Korean and Taiwanese dramas are extremely popular with the young people in Vietnam, and sometimes serve as their only source of knowledge on those places.
Reasons for choosing a Vietnamese bride are simple and often boil down to attractive stereotypes: devotion to the family, calm and gentle manner, hardworking and accepting of foreign husbands. The methods of obtaining a wife are unbelievably easy; bachelors have the option of flipping though a book of prospective wives much like a catalog, or can watch a television show featuring selectable wives. Others, who prefer a hands-on approach, spend up to $10,000 on weeklong bridal shopping trips in Vietnam arranged by marriage brokers. Since 2003, over 22,000 Vietnamese have married Taiwanese men. In 2004, 2,462 Vietnamese women married Korean men, a 75 percent increase from the year before.
Rural Vietnamese women see the benefits of foreign marriages almost immediately in their villages. With money from their new son-in-law, parents construct new houses, buy new motorcycles and pay off debts, living a lifestyle not attainable by farming alone. Initial payment of brides can range anywhere from between $500 to $10,000, usually with a monthly stipend to parents. Despite these payments, reality is often the complete opposite of television.
The risks for the women are very high. Many young women find themselves living with abusive husbands, poor conditions and a feeling of isolation due to cultural and language barriers. Husbands often feel they have the right to get a new wife because they bought their current one. NGOs working with runaway bride victims say many wives are treated as housemaids or servants. Sometimes men control their paperwork and restrict contact with other Vietnamese.
Many women run away, or in some rare cases, divorce their husbands and stay in their new country to make a living, sometimes too ashamed of going home or trying to raise the capital to return. Even the few who do manage to go home will find themselves back in the poverty that drove them away to marriage. These brides are unwilling to speak out because of the embarrassment, and so other women continue to idealize marriage with a foreigner, having no idea of the risks.
The worst challenge facing young women is not abusive husbands but traffickers intent on exploiting poverty-stricken women to be sold as prostitutes. The traffickers can range from single individuals, who constantly visit and bring young women back into their home countries under the disguise of marriage, or pose as marriage brokers who bring large groups of women into another country with falsified paperwork. The inevitable fate is the same: women are sold into brothels and forced into prostitution.
Foreign marriage made up 14 percent of all marriages in Korea by 2005, triple the amount from 2000, and more than 2,000 international marriage agencies fulfill the demand surge. Numbers can be expected to rise until Vietnam becomes a developed nation, and it will be incredibly difficult to differentiate legitimate marriages and agencies from the fakes.
With about 17 million people living below the poverty line, the Vietnamese government is finding it hard to enforce its foreign marriage laws and protect all its citizens. But the government has tried to shut down illegal marriage operations, including one in April 2007, where 118 women were paraded before eight Korean bachelors. And the Taiwanese government passed a law in 2004, regulating the flow of foreign marriages into Taiwan. Even the United States Department of State has accused several marriage brokers of acting as fronts for larger human trafficking violations. Currently, finding love and happiness in a foreign nation is a goal achieved by few. Hopefully with growing awareness, and stricter regulations and enforcement, more will find real hope in marriage with a foreigner.
