Marriage Agencies Violate Women’s Rights

 

The Korea Times

Park Chung-a, Staff Reporter

A lawmaker Sunday called for measures to block the growing commercialization of women and violation of their human rights by international marriage agencies in the country.

Rep. Ahn Myong-ok of the largest opposition Grand National Party, who belongs to the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee, said in a report that international marriage agencies which usually connect Korean men and women from Southeast Asia have been posting pictures and video files of its female members of the region on their Internet Web sites as if advertising products in the market. Nineteen scholars and experts participated in completing the report, sponsored by the Presidential Committee on Social Inclusion. The research for the report was conducted from 2004 Dec. to 2005 June, based on a survey and interviews of 945 migrant women married to Korean men, 1,082 Korean husbands married to migrant women, and 30 people working in international marriage agencies.

They also put up ads that contain lines like ``we guarantee that these will never go away,'' the report said. In the ads, the Southeast Asian women are priced differently according to their wealth and education background.

While meetings with high-school graduates or those with lesser education costs 8.8 million won, meetings with college-graduates or higher education costs 9.8 million won.

Also, city women from middle or upper classes and having English abilities are categorized as special members, costing 15 million won.

According to the report, this type of human rights violations has been continuing not only through the ads but also the process of matchmaking.

In 2004 alone, out of 310,944 marriages, there were 35,447 international marriages in South Korea, accounting for 11. 4 percent of the marriages that took place that year.

In rural areas, international marriages accounted for 27 percent.

International marriage agencies offer various marriage packages for South Korean men, which cost about 10 million won on average.

For example, three to seven day packages to Vietnam, include the meeting, marriage ceremony and honeymoon trip all in one. It all takes place while the Korean man visits to choose the bride.

Once a Korean man registers with the agency and flies to Vietnam to choose his bride, he can meet from 20 up to 300 women at once.

It is almost impossible for Vietnamese woman to reject the Korean man once they get chosen since getting chosen is considered a great ``privilege,'' after fierce competition. Hence, once the woman rejects a Korean man, the agencies deprive them of a second chance for a marriage meeting.

False information is plentiful too. One Vietnamese woman who married a Korean man through an international agency said, ``At the meeting, I was told that my husband was an office worker with a monthly salary of more than 2 million won. However, after the marriage I came to know that he was a low-paid irregular worker at construction sites. He was also married to a Mongolian woman before, which I was not informed of.''

In Vietnam, marriage matchmaking for profit-making purposes is illegal. Hence, the process from the meeting to marriage by local brokers in Vietnam hired by South Korean international marriage agencies is driven underground there.

Local brokers in Vietnam usually recruit Vietnamese women for marriage from rural areas of southern Vietnam. Most of the time, those qualified for recruitment are young women aged from 19 to 25, graduated from elementary school.

Recruited women come to live together in groups at lodgings managed by local brokers in suburban regions. If one fails to be chosen, the period of stay in collective lodging can take more than some months. Some women even end up marrying the handicapped Korean men as they have to pay for their debts grown from extended period of stay.

After they come to Korea being married to a Korean man, the women often face violence and get harsh treatments by their husbands even if they arrive in Korea.

One woman said, ``Upon arriving in Korea, my husband took away passport and would strangle me. I am so scared of my husband. Another woman said, ``I was beat up after three days after I entered the country. As my husband demanded sex after drinking, I said no. Then he would beat me and spit in my face, pulling my hair.''

Ahn said that such distorted and money-blinded international marriage matchmaking system causes structural contradictions and provides a source for conflicts during married life.

``Most of the time, such injustices and violations of human rights by international marriage agencies have been neglected as people tend to think that marriage is something to just celebrate. The government should no more turn a blind eye to this issue,'' she said.

 

 

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