US embassy cable - 03HANOI3232

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 003232 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR G/TIP, EAP/BCLTV, EAP/RSP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KWMN, KCRM, VM, TW, OMIG, TIP 
SUBJECT:  VIETNAM TIP: THE TAIWAN MARRIAGE PHENOMENON 
 
 
1. Summary:  Taiwan has become the export destination of 
choice for Vietnamese brides.  73,000 women - 95 percent of 
Vietnamese marrying foreigners - have married Taiwanese men 
since the phenomenon began to take off in 1995.  Demand is 
growing, driven by (1) the desire of lower-middle class 
Taiwanese men to marry young women willing to play a 
traditional family role and (2) the desire of Mekong Delta 
women to escape from grinding rural poverty and provide for 
their families.  Some high-profile cases of abuse and 
trafficking have hit the press, triggering intense scrutiny 
of the phenomenon in Taiwan and in Vietnam, but so far 
evidence points to trafficking cases being the exception, 
not the rule.  Taiwan authorities, the GVN, some NGOs, and 
local support organizations in communities with large 
numbers of Vietnamese who have married Taiwanese men all 
agree that 90-95 percent of these marriages are successful, 
and an even higher percentage are legitimate.  End summary. 
 
IS IT TRAFFICKING? 
------------------ 
 
2. Some believe that the practice of Taiwanese men arranging 
marriages in Vietnam with the help of for-profit matchmaking 
agencies is a form of trafficking in persons.  Paula-Frances 
Kelly, an Australian author and academic, identified 
"Confucian concepts common to Taiwanese and Vietnamese 
cultures" as the main drivers of the Taiwan-Vietnam marriage 
connection.  According to Kelly, Confucian "filial piety" 
obligations of Taiwanese men to care for their parents by 
marrying a traditional woman who will help fulfill that duty 
are increasingly hard to meet.  Young Taiwanese women are 
rejecting the traditional, subservient role of a Confucian 
wife and daughter-in-law in favor of urban lifestyles, 
higher education, and professional careers.  According to a 
2002 study by the Can Tho province Women's Union among 
Taiwanese men seeking to marry Vietnamese women, 46 percent 
of Taiwanese men said they came to Vietnam to find a wife 
because it was "difficult and expensive to marry Taiwanese 
women in Taiwan".  Ms. Tran Thi Thuy, Vice President of the 
Can Tho Women's Union, said Taiwanese men describe Can Tho 
women as "beautiful, industrious, dexterous, and capable of 
helping their husbands with work and domestic chores". 
 
3. The reality for most Vietnamese-Taiwanese marriages is 
not romantic.  According to Mrs. Do Thi Nhu Tam, Director of 
the Mobility Research and Support Center (a Vietnamese NGO) 
the usual pattern is for a Taiwanese man to contract with a 
Taiwan-based agency to arrange travel to Vietnam, 
development of a selection of potential brides, and 
facilitation of the bureaucratic necessities surrounding the 
marriage and subsequent immigration to Taiwan.  Agencies 
charge from USD 8,000 to USD 15,000 for providing these 
services, according to media reports. 
 
4. On the Vietnam side, Taiwanese agencies are affiliated 
with Taiwanese or Vietnamese agencies in Ho Chi Minh City 
which then subcontract with smaller for-profit "matchmakers" 
in the Mekong Delta.  These smaller matchmakers then recruit 
potential brides and charge them a fee (refundable if they 
are chosen) to prepare them for a selection process known in 
the Delta as "the contest".   The process is the beauty- 
pageant style parade of women from which the Taiwanese 
grooms in HCMC or Can Tho choose the "finalists".  After the 
preparation, which includes beautification treatments, a few 
Chinese language lessons, and even in some cases surgery, 
the candidates are brought to Ho Chi Minh City and presented 
to the Taiwanese clients in large groups in a public place 
such as a park or hotel.  The successful candidate from the 
group will then live with her new fiance for up to a month 
in a hotel while the paperwork for her immigration to Taiwan 
is finalized.  It is during that month that the wedding 
ceremony is performed and the traditional "bride-price" is 
paid to the family.  This amount ranges from USD 300 to USD 
3000, depending on various factors, including the amount of 
commission taken by the Vietnamese matchmaker. [Note: this 
"bride price" is also paid in some Vietnamese-Vietnamese 
weddings, though it is more common in rural areas for the 
groom's family to pay in livestock or other commodities. 
End note.] 
 
5. Vietnamese women's own sense of duty to their families 
encourages them to try to marry in a way that will improve 
their families' condition, even though it may require the 
considerable sacrifice of moving far from their homes and 
families, noted Ms. Lu Thi Ngoc Anh, President of the 
Women's Union of Can Tho, in a speech on September 20, 2002 
in Can Tho.  The Can Tho Women's Union 2002 study found that 
90 percent of Vietnamese brides surveyed were under age 25 
and came from families that were poor or in debt.  Mrs. Do 
Thi Nhu Tam believes that the combination of poverty and 
family obligation "conditions" Vietnamese women and drives 
them into marriages with Taiwanese strangers against their 
will.  To Mrs. Nhu Tam, poor Vietnamese girls marrying 
Taiwanese men are being trafficked.  In a December 1, 2003 
meeting with Poloff in Ho Chi Minh City, she said "there is 
no difference between a woman marrying a Taiwanese stranger 
to elevate the family's economic situation and being taken 
to Cambodia to be a sex worker." 
 
6. Ms. Nhu Tam's view of all arranged marriages between 
partners at different socioeconomic levels is at the extreme 
end of the spectrum, but Vietnamese (and Taiwanese) press 
outlets have also seized on more conventional trafficking 
cases related to Taiwanese marriage.  The Vietnamese Women 
(Phu Nu) magazine, and the Youth Newspaper (Tuoi Tre) have 
both run expose-style articles telling the stories of 
Vietnamese women who have gone to Taiwan for marriage but 
found themselves sold to brothels, forced to serve other 
family members sexually, or kept in abusive conditions as 
slave labor.  The China Times in Taiwan ran an article on 
October 9, 2003 identifying four Vietnamese girls trafficked 
to the southern Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung.  The girls 
said they had been brought over by "marriage brokers". 
 
7. The Taiwan authorities, Vietnam Women's Union officials, 
and provincial-level government officials acknowledge abuses 
within the system but maintain that the rate of bad cases is 
very low.  Mr. Robert C. Lee, the visa official at the 
Taipei Economic and Cultural Relations Office (TECO) in Ho 
Chi Minh City, said in a meeting with Poloff and HCMC Conoff 
that he estimated that trafficking cases represented less 
than one percent of the marriage visas he issued each year. 
He acknowledged that some marriages go bad, and that there 
are abusive husbands in Taiwan just as there are elsewhere, 
but said that only 5 percent of marriages between Vietnamese 
and Taiwanese end in divorce.  (Note: he also mentioned that 
he had "several" inquiries each day from Taiwanese husbands 
looking for Vietnamese wives who had left Taiwan, and that 
dealing with these cases took a great deal of his time.  The 
5 percent figure seems low. End note.)  Lee also noted that 
Taiwan does not have a "fiance" visa the way the U.S. has. 
Women going to Taiwan for marriage must marry their 
Taiwanese husbands in Vietnam, and the couple must appear in 
person both in the TECO office and in the Vietnamese Justice 
Department to register their marriage.  This, he noted, is a 
significant logistical obstacle for traffickers who might 
want to use marriage as a way to conceal human trafficking. 
 
8. Women's Union officials in Can Tho and An Giang provinces 
agreed with Mr. Lee's assessment.  In Can Tho, Women's Union 
VP Thuy said that for the most part, marriages between women 
in Can Tho and Taiwanese men were both legal and successful. 
She said that a small number of women who went to Taiwan 
ended up as prostitutes there, but sad it was "not many". 
In Long Xuyen, the capital of An Giang province, the Women's 
Union was more explicit.  "I wish," An Giang Provincial 
Women's Union chief Nguyen Thi Lien said, "that the 
marriages between Vietnamese in An Giang were as successful 
as the marriages between Vietnamese from An Giang and 
Taiwanese men".  She acknowledged that she knew of some 
cases where women had returned with stories of being forced 
to be domestic servants or even to sexually service other 
family members in Taiwan.  These were rare, she added, 
compared to the large number of successful marriages. 
 
WORKING TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION 
-------------------------------- 
 
9. The GVN is sensitive to the perception that Vietnamese 
women are a commodity to be bought and sold, noted UN Office 
on Drugs and Crime representative Troels Vester.  The press 
has picked up on some of the stories of women who have been 
mistreated in Taiwan, and this has put pressure on the GVN 
to investigate the situation.  At the same time, Taiwan 
takes the position that "based on humane reasons and ethical 
concerns. . . Taiwan must through the legal system protect 
and take good care of foreign brides married to Taiwanese 
men," according to a speech by David Wu, Director General of 
TECO in HCMC.  Taiwan makes an effort to educate Vietnamese 
women prior to their departure for Taiwan, said Mr. Lee.  He 
showed Poloff and HCMC Conoff copies of various pamphlets, 
books, cards, and brochures written in simple Vietnamese 
explaining the rights and responsibilities of both parties 
in a Taiwan marriage.  The documents also featured phone 
numbers staffed by Vietnamese speakers who were standing by 
in Taiwan to help in an emergency situation. 
 
10. The Vietnamese side is also alert and watching for abuse 
within the context of marriage between Vietnamese women and 
Taiwanese men, according to Nguyen Thi Lien.  "We have a 
propaganda program in place," she said, "to encourage 
members of the Women's Union to be vigilant and look out for 
abuses of Vietnamese women".  Nguyen Thi Tuyet, Director of 
the Justice Department of Can Tho province, said in a 2002 
speech "We need to enhance the sense of responsibility and 
the coordination among branches, [of government] in the 
education, verification and assessment of applications for 
marriage registration observing legal stipulations in order 
to protect the well-being and human dignity of Vietnamese 
women".  Tuyet noted that Taiwanese-Vietnamese marriages are 
legal under the laws of both countries, and that data so far 
seemed to indicate that most of the marriages were 
successful and legitimate.  Still, she said, the GVN would 
continue to monitor the situation, and "if the number of 
unfortunate cases is large, it will become an issue 
requiring the State's intervention". 
 
11. Comment: The women participating in these marriages are 
young, uneducated, and very poor.  They are marrying men 
from Taiwan for economic reasons and enduring the hardship 
of living as a foreigner in another society.  The decision 
to marry is, however, a legal and permissible choice.  The 
fact that economic imbalances result in an outflow of young 
Vietnamese women to Taiwan is an embarrassing and emotional 
issue for Vietnam, and has provoked a great deal of official 
attention.  This attention, and similar inquiries by Taiwan 
officials, have not revealed any evidence to conclude that 
marriage to Taiwanese is a significant vector for 
trafficking in persons from or through Vietnam. 
PORTER