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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) |
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