hey there.
it’s been a while, but i thought i’d come back to this post and give you a bit of an update on the situation.

follow up was done recently of viet women who’ve married to and moved to koreans/korea in teh past few years.

30% end up trafficked (post marriages that don’t work out)
30% report being “very unhappy”.
that leaves you 40% who report being “untrafficked” or “not unhappy”.

there are about 45K womem a year going from the mekong delta to korea (hold your indignation – it got up to 75K a year in taiwan. when are people going to realise s3x-selective abortion causes problems?).

the korean government has been taking steps to aid rights education for potential and selected brides. this was something taiwan didn’t do at all, until at 75K a year the abuses were found to be so wisespread that the whole system collapsed. korea is aware of this and trying to put something (not much, but something) in place before these numbers expand even more. which they will, no doubt about it. big part of the issue: ave. age of the women 19-20; most have about a 6th grade education. most knowldge of korea comes from the (some times halarious, always overacted) korean soapies that are big big big in vn.

two trial projects under way – a “roadshow” thats been going about delta towns, trying to plant the seed that maybe you aint gonna be none in seoul going shopping – you might be the houseslave. there are games, gifts etc.. trying to be as fun as possible, but raise awareness of differeing possible outcomes to chosing to join the marriage lineup. (and you get a cc sized info card with emergency contact numbers for when you’re in korea. easy to hide from hubby. so if it all goes up the kazoo… this is a pretty big deal – how do you get this type of info to these women? one only hopes they keep the cards)

a one day educaiton program is also starting up for recently selected brides – one day of classes in what your rights are, contacting people for help when you’re there etc.. hopefully in the long term it’s going to be the case that marriage certificates won’t be given unless the woman has attended one of these courses.

not much, but better than naught, i suppose. the numbers continue to rise. what can you do when people chose to walk into these situations voluntarily? take away their personal agency? they’re chosing between a life of extreme poverty (always as an “em” – little sister) vs. a 2 in 5 chance of being “not unhappy” and maybe sending some money home. what’s the choice? there’s some blaming to be thrown about in there somewhere….

follow up was done recently of viet women who’ve married to and moved to koreans/korea in teh past few years.

30% end up trafficked (post marriages that don’t work out)
30% report being “very unhappy”.
that leaves you 40% who report being “untrafficked” or “not unhappy”.

there are about 45K womem a year going from the mekong delta to korea (hold your indignation – it got up to 75K a year in taiwan. when are people going to realise sex-selective abortion causes problems?).

the korean government has been taking steps to aid rights education for potential and selected brides. this was something taiwan didn’t do at all, until at 75K a year the abuses were found to be so wisespread that the whole system collapsed. korea is aware of this and trying to put something (not much, but something) in place before these numbers expand even more. which they will, no doubt about it. big part of the issue: ave. age of the women 19-20; most have about a 6th grade education. most knowldge of korea comes from the (some times halarious, always overacted) korean soapies that are big big big in vn.

two trial projects under way – a “roadshow” thats been going about delta towns, trying to plant the seed that maybe you aint gonna be none in seoul going shopping – you might be the houseslave. there are games, gifts etc.. trying to be as fun as possible, but raise awareness of differeing possible outcomes to chosing to join the marriage lineup. (and you get a cc sized info card with emergency contact numbers for when you’re in korea. easy to hide from hubby. so if it all goes up the kazoo… this is a pretty big deal – how do you get this type of info to these women? one only hopes they keep the cards)

a one day educaiton program is also starting up for recently selected brides – one day of classes in what your rights are, contacting people for help when you’re there etc.. hopefully in the long term it’s going to be the case that marriage certificates won’t be given unless the woman has attended one of these courses.

not much, but better than naught, i suppose. the numbers continue to rise. what can you do when people chose to walk into these situations voluntarily? take away their personal agency? they’re chosing between a life of extreme poverty (always as an “em” – little sister) vs. a 2 in 5 chance of being “not unhappy” and maybe sending some money home. what’s the choice? there’s some blaming to be thrown about in there somewhere….

feminine women know their place; and shut up. atleast when they’re 18, anyway.

is it trafficking? only if the marriage is coerced. remember, given that the alternate might be marrying your across-the-canal-neighbor and remaining in your little house of twigs over the sewer outlet that is the mekong delta, there are many reasons why a woman might consider overseas marriage an attractive option. NGO’s and int. agencies in the region go for harm minimisation – that’s the general trend all round, as can best be seen. however, there are few orgs. working on the issue inside VN, it tends to be considered a judical/law and order issue.

absolutely, it can be a conduit to the sex trade. however – so can migration for factory work. when you take poor, vulnerable women and children out of their only support network, the likely hood they will end up in the sex trade goes up enormously.

re the returning… I reread the korean docs, yes you can return, but the actual word used was “swap” – you can “swap” your wife after 6 months if you’re incompatible. Basically, if you were going to the effort of returning the woman back to VN then there will be no trafficking.. If she was going to be trafficked, she’d have been brought in for the trade (ie: married in for that purpose), or used within a family. your local koraen farmer tends not to have mafiosi connections. so yeah – if she’s being returned, she’s lucky. not one of the ones to worry about…

one last thing re the trafficking q: it’s important to remember that migration through marriage has been a feature of female migration throughout time. war brides, brides sent to the new world, brides from the homeland to every diaspora in history etc… personally, i think the right to migration is up there with the right to education etc… i think present migration laws are ridiculous – where do we get off saying you’re on that side of the line, i’m on this, so i get these jobs, you get nothing? etc… being able to migrate is a significant/proportional factor for intergenerational financial improvement – that is; migration for the most part makes you better off. we start branding these marriages as trafficking, we’re going to cut off pretty much the only means these women have o leaving vn. which really isn’t necessarily fair to them (whether or not it’s a easy/improved path for them). I mean – i used to think there were problems in gender relations in the west . i’ve been here a few years now (about as long as i can take), and i gotta say… whatever problems we have, confucian societies can really, really, really suck if you’re a young female.

any more questions ask away. this topic is.. has become v. close to me while i’ve been here (and you want on western/local male/fem relations in sea.. please… ) makes me happy that others are hearing about what actually goes on in this part of the world, in this regard, anyhow..

As you say, they find themselves in a new country with no security or means of establishing themselves independently so are hugely vulnerable and completely dependent. I’m no expert on these issues and the region – but my girlfriend is, so I’m just speculating based on what I’ve heard from her, that some of these girls can easily end up moving on (or being made to move) from these setup marriages into the sex trade in the new country. Do you think that’s something that happens? Can this marriage trade be considered a conduit into the sex trade for women?

Re: the ad campaign portraying Viet women as the most submissive and “returnable” (and sorry for asking so many questions): If one of these women’s new husbands decides he doesn’t want her anymore, are they normally enabled to return home, or are they abandoned/passed on to another “trade”/ left to fend for themselves somehow in the importing country?

Firstly: Sending women off to get married OS is a legit means of generating income for very, very poor families in Viet Nam. While the idea that you could be a non-virgin at marriage (no, not the men and yes, the teenage abortion rate is very high) is cause for social disgrace, marrying to save the family is considered noble. Women from the Mekong tend to go to South Asia, from the North to Korea, China etc… The poor women that end up in the sex trade in Cambodia get a far worse deal.. The $5000 doesn’t go to the woman, nor to the family in its entirety, they might get 1K. however if your monthly income is $13 a month (200,000 VNDong) $1000 still a windfall. With many people in the Mekong essentially still existing as hunter gatherers, there is little means to improve the economic situation of such families by other means. And given the predominance of the Confucian model in VN and the generally desolateness of life as a poor Viet, marriage sales go on.

The Official response is not suprising. Because this is such a significant part of the economy in drastically poor areas of the country there is no interest, what so ever, in stopping it. In certian regions it’s actively promoted. Receiving countries might complain – but it’s face saving only. Korea, as Twisty pointed out some time ago, pays an allowance for poor farmers to import their wives. Korea became an issue when about 6-12 months ago a series of ads, portraying Viet women as the most submissive, attractive, returnable etc… went up in Seoul. Ha Noi went nuts – public shaming is the only this that produces political reaction, for both senders and receivers. There is a known case of a 24 yo Viet girl who went to work in Malaysia, left the job and auctioned herself off for about $4000 in a shopping mall. She was taken home by a man over 60.

I’m going somewhere with this… :) The main issue, in a practical (and entirely non-blaming context – this is what i do, indulge me) is the absence of education for women who are, essentially, being sold into their new lives. If you’ve spent your 18 years gathering coconuts in a shack over the river, you tend to find HCM tough, let’s not think about KL. You don’t speak the language, you lack your sole resource- you community, you have no employable skills, you have no income – you really want to hope your husband is a good guy… The perception amongst many people (atleast in the South, where I’m based) is that once you get outside VN to a “rich” country, everything will be fine.

Anyway – again – this is a well invested social path. Public national shaming is the only this that produces results, not to stop it, but to regulate this travesty. It’s tragic. anyway… for your reading pleasure…

http://www.lifepartnermatchmaker.com/eaboutus.html

Just…. read till the very last paragraph.

It sickens me and makes me want to scream in frustration. Why Twisty, Why do they do this when we LEAST need it?

I blame the patriarchy.