WUNRN
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Tragedies
of Vietnamese Wives Rife in South Korea |
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Stories
of Vietnamese women falling prey to domestic violence and even murder are far
from rare in South Korea where their marriages to Korean men are usually
arranged by brokers, Thanh Nien has discovered. |
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Thanh Nien learned about the ordeal of these brides by meeting four Vietnamese women who run a hotline set up by the Korean Ministry of Women and Family to protect the rights of foreign wives. When your correspondent told them the story of a Korean man who denied custody of his Vietnamese wife after coercing her into sex, the hotline operators said they had seen far more pathetic cases. It had become very common for Vietnamese women to be deserted, battered, and murdered, they said, and narrated several recent instances in which the wives, subject to domestic violence, had committed suicide. One woman was beaten up by her husband all the time despite the fact she was about to deliver a baby. She attempted to commit suicide once but failed after her husband discovered it. He continued to beat her and caused a miscarriage, and later abandoned her. Another woman died attempting to escape from her house following months of forced sex and isolation by her husband. She fell from the upper floor of the house to her death. Her poor family has been unable to bring her body home for three months and her husband is refusing to pay for her funeral. The recent plight of another Vietnamese woman has infuriated the public in South Korea after being shown on a popular TV channel. Twenty-year-old Huynh Mai from Kien Giang province in the Mekong Delta came to Cheonan city last May after marrying Jangamuke, 46. But he began to ill-treat her and after two months she asked to return home. Not only did Jangamuke not allow that but also flew into a rage and beat her to death. Her body was found on July 4, eight days after her death, in the basement of the house. An autopsy revealed 18 broken ribs. Her husband was arrested this month after he fled town. Cultural and language barriers aggravated the gap between Vietnamese wives and their Korean families, the hotline operators felt. A lot of Vietnamese admitted they were unable to fulfill their obligations as daughters-in-law in their highly conservative Korean families, they said. They added the language gap prevented these women from discussing things with their husbands, often leaving them mired in depression. Mail-order marriages blamed The hotline people blamed illegal marriage bureaus which fixed over 90 percent of Vietnamese-Korean marriages for the pathetic situation of the brides. They hushed up information pertaining to the mental and physical condition of the husbands, financial situation, and legal records. Recently police in Vietnam arrested several such brokers who were caught lining up local women for South Korean men to choose. Bright side But Thanh Nien also found several Vietnamese wives living happily with their Korean spouses. These families usually meet up for weekends for fun and games. The hotline operators said it had been set up to obtain evidence to take legal action against husbands abusing foreign wives. Under Korean law if the court finds a Korean spouse responsible for a divorce with a foreigner, the latter is allowed to stay in Korea and gets welfare. Besides, the hotline also provides health, legal, and mediation services for foreign wives. This year the government announced a program to provide financial assistance to foreign brides who marry poor local men. It is also trying to stamp out to the clandestine marriage bureaus that find poor mail-order foreign brides for Korean men. |
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