Korea suffers tarnished image as bride importer

via CAAI News Media

English.news.cn 2010-03-24

By Kim Junghyun

SEOUL, March 24 (Xinhua) -- South Korea recently suffered a major embarrassment after it was known that the Cambodian government issued a temporary ban on international marriages between local women and South Korean men, citing "human trafficking" concerns.

South Korean authorities, baffled, are now scrambling to come up with face-saving measures including a stricter visa issuance policy, but civic groups and local media are pointing their fingers at the country's peculiar culture of international marriage as a main culprit.

OPEN SECRET

The Cambodian government in early March indefinitely suspended receiving applications for international marriages between Cambodians and South Koreans, following a police arrest last September of a marriage broker who set up a meeting between 25 young women and one South Korean man, local media reported last week.

The women were from poor rural villages and paid money to the broker, which the Cambodian authorities said is tantamount to human trafficking. The broker was reportedly sentenced to 10 years ' imprisonment.

Cambodia, one of the most popular destinations for South Korean bachelors looking for spouses oversea, outlawed marriage brokerage in 2008 while allowing so-called "love matches," but matchmakers there still play a go-between to strike backdoor deals and take secret commissions.

The provisional ban applies only to South Korean nationals, who are involved in about 60 percent of all international marriages in Cambodia. 1,372 Cambodian women married South Korean men in 2009, a surge compared to 72 international marriages between Cambodians and South Koreans in 2004, according to Yonhap News Agency.

It is not uncommon to see South Korean men hurriedly holding wedding ceremonies and fleeing the country before the authorities give an official nod, and some even submit fabricated documents in the open when applying for a marriage license, Yonhap said.

WIFE-FINDING MISSION

The issue, many say, offers a window into the South Korean society.

In a largely conservative country where getting married at a certain age and carrying on a family line is socially expected, many bachelors living in shrinking farming and fishing towns are pressured to find spouses while snubbed by well-educated and career-conscious South Korean women.

As a last resort, many farmers and fishermen have turned their eyes to overseas for possible marriage partners since late 1990s, flocking to less affluent Asian countries on a wife-finding mission.

Also, South Koreans are familiar with arranged marriages, and professional matchmaking companies, a modern-day version of traditional matchmakers, have mushroomed for the past decade to form a thriving industry.

The government statistics released Wednesday show 38.7 percent men in rural towns who tied the knot last year married foreign women, mostly from Vietnam, China and Cambodia, while grooms were older than brides by an average of 11.1 years.

At the same time, the number of married migrants here has shot up over the past years to reach 154,000, according to the recent government-backed survey.

COPING MEASURES

The beleaguered South Korean government is now trying to shed its tainted reputation as a bride importer.

"We will publicize that marrying South Koreans has nothing to do with human trafficking, and that there are many Cambodian women who have Korean dreams," an unnamed official at the South Korean embassy in Cambodia was quoted as saying by Seoul's Yonhap News Agency.

The government is considering applying stricter visa issuance policies for South Korean bachelors going abroad and requiring them to spend at least 20 days to get to know local women, according to local media.

A lack of resident officials from the justice ministry also plays a part in the general mismanagement of marriage brokerage, local media reported.

Some say South Korea is not the sole cause of the problem. "(Cambodia) needs to admit that there are both supply and demand sides to the issue," another official at the embassy told local media.

Editor: Xiong Tong