This was a sad story, but it's interesting nevertheless:
Singapore fair puts brides on display
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam
HO CHI MINH CITY - News of the public exhibition of Vietnamese brides for "instant marriage" at a recent fair in Singapore along with the sale of young Vietnamese girls to single men in neighboring China seeking wives has shocked the public here.
On March 17, police in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, arrested four young Vietnamese men ranging from the ages of 19 to 23 for selling their girlfriends to a Chinese syndicate. These men first made friends with the eight girls by chatting to them over the Internet. They were then enticed to travel with the men to Lang Son province in the north. Once there, they were sold to the syndicate for 5,000 yuan (US$600) each.
"These guys all are very young, but have wicked hearts. The ringleader, Dao Ngoc Dung, is evil enough to sell his two lovers," read a statement on VietnamNet, an online news portal. It added that the public was horrified at the behavior of the young criminals.
If this incident wasn't enough of a shock, local newspapers reported a week later that young Vietnamese girls had been displayed as "brides" at a trade fair in Singapore. The Thanh Nien daily translated a March 14 article carried by the Singapore paper Today describing how Vietnamese women were "put on display" like products at a trade fair booth at the Golden Mile Complex trading center in Singapore.
The booth was set up by Blissful Heart Marriage Center, and according to director Francis Toh, the "Vietnamese were there to give potential clients an idea how Vietnamese girls look and [to] give them a feel of the on-the-spot selection process".
A Singaporean man was seen distributing leaflets to passersby, promoting luxury cruise packages at a cost of S$13,800 (US$8,365). For an extra S$9,800 (US$5,940), a single man buying a luxury cruise could choose a bride on the spot to accompany him on his trip.
"It was like a TV advertisement, and it was so humiliating," the Thanh Nien daily reported, quoting a Vietnamese employee at a computer firm in Singapore.
In recent years, an increasing number of Singapore men, unable to find love at home, have sought their brides in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Many are convinced that foreigners make better wives because they are perceived as more domesticated, less arrogant or materialistic compared to their Singapore counterparts.
Quynh Mai, who runs a hotel business in Singapore, said that Vietnamese women were also put on display in other places in the city-state, such as the Fulushou and Orchard Point trading centers.
Braema Mathi, president of Singapore's Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), said the practice of displaying Vietnamese women as brides was humiliating. "I think putting women from any country up like this, almost advertising themselves as brides, is repugnant."
In the past decade, marrying Vietnamese women has also become a golden opportunity for Taiwanese and Chinese men, who due to their poor social status are finding it difficult to find wives in their home countries.
Taiwanese government officials say more than 250,000 foreign women are married to Taiwanese men, and at least one in nine marriages on the island is mixed. In the first half of 2004 alone 5,689 Vietnamese women married Taiwanese men, according to the Taiwanese Office of Economics and Culture in Ho Chi Minh City.
Many people in Taiwan treat this trend as a business opportunity, not surprising for an island with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. For a fee, matchmaking agencies will arrange for Taiwanese men to meet their perfect partner.
Taiwan-based dating companies often send potential grooms to Ho Chi Minh, where they are able choose their brides from among dozens of girls who come from the countryside wanting to be married to foreigners.
In China, the trade in Vietnamese women is driven largely by the country's tens of millions of bachelors, usually farmers unable to find brides. Males are prized in China and this has caused a gender imbalance in the country caused by a decades-old one-child policy.
Meanwhile, many Vietnamese women seeking an escape from poverty are lured to China by fake promises of jobs or good marriages.
A few social workers in Vietnam point out that there could be a link between matchmaking companies and women trafficking rings. "Because there is demand, there will be supply," said social worker Tran Thu Huong.
And though Vietnamese women are sold as brides to foreigners, they end up leading a life of servitude, said Huong.
The illusion of getting a better life has lured poor Vietnamese girls from the countryside to take risks in marrying strangers overseas. Some turn out to be old, disabled and even mentally ill. Worse, of the thousands of US dollars paid by the groom to matchmaking agencies, the bride's family at home receives only $200 or $300 at most.
In the past five years, more than 30,000 people have been prosecuted in Vietnam on charges of trafficking in women and children, with traffickers jailed for up to 20 years.
Sociologist Tran Hong Van argues that Vietnamese brides have deliberately accepted marrying foreigners so as to escape poverty and misfortune. "They are volunteers, and thus could hardly be considered as victims of an international trade in women."
Likewise, some local newspapers have blamed the Vietnamese girls of accepting the indignity of being exhibited at the Singapore trade fair for a promise of better life.
When asked to comment on the issue, Nguyen Si Dung, vice director of the National Assembly Office said, "The girls agreed to take a chance overseas because they could not find one at home."
Dung said Vietnamese women were also forced to seek overseas husbands because they faced sexual discrimination and abuse from local men.
"Many men, especially men in rural areas, consider themselves as masters, and their wives [are] their belongings," he told Inter Press Service. "Violence against women - physical as well as spiritual - occurs publicly and constantly in Vietnam, especially in rural areas. Women accept all the troubles and worries while their men take special rights but too little responsibility.
"Under such circumstances it is better to marry a foreigner who is the 'lesser evil'. This explains the sad issue of Vietnamese brides exhibited at the Singapore trade fair," admitted Dung.
But social worker Huong disagrees: "If you think you could have a chance [of a better life], are you willing to marry a stranger and thus expose yourself to hardship?" she asked. "It's a hopeless life that pushes the poor girls to take that fateful step."
(Inter Press Service) |
