Vietnamese Girls Sold To Chinese Men For "Instant Marriages"

by Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

(IPS) HO CHI MINH CITY -- News of the sale of young Vietnamese girls to single men in neighboring China seeking wives and the public exhibition of Vietnamese brides for "instant marriage" at a recent fair in Singapore have shocked the public here.

On Mar. 17, police in the capital Hanoi arrested four young Vietnamese men for selling their girl friends 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.

There, they were sold to the syndicate for 5,000 yuan ($600) each.

"These guys all are very young (from 19 to 23), but have wicked hearts. The ringleader, Dao Ngoc Dung, is evil enough to sell his two 'lovers' ," said VietnamNet, an on-line news portal. It also added that the public was shocked at the behavior of the young criminals.

As if this incident wasn't enough, local newspapers reported a week later that young Vietnamese girls were displayed as 'brides' at a trade fair in Singapore.

The 'Thanh Nien' daily translated a Mar. 14 article carried by the Singapore paper 'Today' describing how Vietnamese women were "put on display" like products 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 give them a feel of the on-the-spot selection process."

A Singaporean man was seen distributing leaflets to passers-by, promoting luxury cruise packages costing 13,800 Singapore dollars (8,365 U.S. dollars). For an extra 9,800 Singapore dollars (5,940 U.S. dollars), 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 quoted a Vietnamese working at a computer firm in Singapore as telling the newspaper.

In recent years, an increasing number of Singapore men, unable to find love at home, have been seeking 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 like 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."

Marrying Vietnamese women has become in the last decade a golden opportunity also 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 there are now more than 250,000 foreign women married to Taiwanese men and at least one in nine marriages on the island is mixed. In the first half of 2004 alone there were as many as 5,689 Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men, according to the Taiwanese Office of Economics and Culture here.

Not surprisingly for an island with a strong enterpreneurial spirit, many people are treating this trend as a business opportunity. 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 City. Here, they would be able choose their brides from dozens of girls coming from the countryside who want to be married to foreigners.

In China, the trade in Vietnamese women is driven largely by the tens of millions of bachelors in China, usually farmers unable to find brides. Males are prized and this has caused a gender imbalance in China caused by a decades-old one-child policy.

Seeking an escape from poverty, many are lured into 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.

Vietnamese women are sold as brides to foreigners but they end up leading a life of servitude, added 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 U.S. dollars paid by the groom to match-making agencies the bride's family at home receives only two or three hundred U.S. dollars at the 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 up to 20 years.

Sociologist Tran Hong Van argues that "Vietnamese brides" have deliberately agreed to marry 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 for accepting the indignity of being exhibited at a 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 their belongings," he told IPS. "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."