A road that may lead to death

Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodian women ... South Korean victims of forced marriage

• A side of the South Korean marriage rituals.

  From the source

• South Koreans marry foreigners.

  From the source

• Foreign wives in South Korea fall victim to violence.

  From the source

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South Korea encourages its young men to marry foreigners, but foreign wives often become victims of abuse. This is evidenced by the story of the Vietnamese girl "Trinh", who died because of these practices.

Court documents show that she was 29 years old, while her future husband was in his 50s.

She only spoke Vietnamese, and he spoke Korean.

Despite the communication barrier, their marriage formalities moved forward on November 4, 2018 - one day after they met - they got married in front of her family in Vietnam.

Seven months later, "Trinh", which is not her real name, moved to South Korea to be with her husband, Shin.

Three months later, she died.

Trinh is one of thousands of Vietnamese women who have married South Korean men, through the offices of “Halal Two Heads Matching”, a service that is not only promoted in South Korea, but also supported by local authorities.

And some couples have successful and happy marriages.

But many foreign wives who marry their other half in this way, who are formally classified as immigrants, become victims of discrimination, domestic violence, and even murder at the hands of their husbands.

The statistics paint a bleak picture of the situation.

More than 42% of foreign wives reported experiencing domestic violence, including physical, verbal, sexual and financial abuse, according to a 2017 survey by the National Human Rights Commission. By comparison, only about 29% of South Korean wives surveyed by the Ministry of Equality reported Gender and family in the country, last year, they were victims of domestic violence, again including a range of forms of abuse.

South Korean human rights monitors say discriminatory rules, along with gender discrimination and racism in society, are responsible, and are pushing for institutional changes to keep foreign wives safe.

Communication issues

From the start, Trinh and Shane had difficulty communicating.

Court documents show that Shin returned to South Korea after their wedding.

They lived separately for months, and although they kept in touch via messaging apps, they quarreled a lot because "you see" often asking for additional financial support.

Finally, on August 16, 2019, Trinh arrived in South Korea and moved to Yangju in Gyeonggi Province, which includes the capital, Seoul, to live with her husband.

Court documents did not specify the reason for the delay in arriving in South Korea, although both spouses must meet certain criteria for a foreign wife to obtain a visa, including that the husband has sufficient income to support his wife.

However, their disagreement persisted, court records show.

They differed often due to the language barrier, their differences in the way each one would like to live, and financial issues.

Three months later, on November 16, Trinh told Shane that she was leaving to live with a relative in another city.

Court records showed that "Shane" tried to stop her, so she took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him in the right thigh.

The victim returns to her homeland as a corpse

According to court records, "Shane" took the knife and stabbed his wife about 10 times in the chest and stomach.

After her death, he wrapped her body in plastic, placed it in his car, and drove to an orchard more than 200 kilometers from their home in Yangju to bury her there.

In April, Sheen was sentenced to 15 years in prison, for the murder of his wife.

Multi-ethnic brides

For decades, there has been a gender imbalance in rural South Korea.

Because most young women often go to cities for jobs and marriage, while their male counterparts remain in their territories to look after their lands and adhere to the Confucian teachings of caring for their elderly fathers.

In the 1980s, local governments began to support marriage brokerage offices in the private sector, which could marry single farmers to Korean women of ethnicity, and the government was paying intermediaries between four and six million won (at the time equivalent to $ 5,700) per marriage.

It was an attempt to address an aging population by encouraging men to marry wives to rejuvenate the country.

In the decades that followed, wives were not only of Korean descent, but of any other background, as intermediaries resorted to bringing them from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

The cross-state marriage brokerage industry soon emerged.

As of May this year, 380 marriage mediation offices have been registered in South Korea, according to government statistics.

These days, most of the foreign brides in South Korea come from Vietnam.

Most of them are married to men in rural areas, as some provinces still provide subsidies to those who wish to marry foreigners, for example, South Jeolla Province, for men over 35 years of age who have never married before, offer five million won ($ 4,190). For marriage to a foreign wife, and marriage registration fees.

In 2018, 16608 Koreans were married, 6338 women from Vietnam, 3671 from China, and 1560 from Thailand.

In all, 28% of all of these marriages were between South Korean and Vietnamese men.

More conditions

The South Korean government, and countries in Southeast Asia, have long worried that the intermediary industry for foreign women marriage could lead to human trafficking and abuse.

And in 2010, Cambodia temporarily banned its female citizens from marrying South Koreans.

The Vietnamese authorities have also raised concerns about these marriages, according to local Vietnamese media reports.

In South Korea itself, the rules have also been tightened.

Since 2014, South Korean authorities have required their citizens who wish to marry foreigners to prove that they have enough money to support their wives as a condition of issuing a visa for them.

Applicants must demonstrate that the bride has at least the basics of speaking the Korean language, or that the couple can communicate in a third language.

Moreover, last year South Korea announced plans to prevent men with bad histories from obtaining visas for their foreign wives.

This law is set to go into effect in November.

But there are still institutional issues in South Korea that place foreign brides and their husbands on an unequal footing.

Under South Korea's immigration laws, foreign brides are issued with an initial visa that lasts for one year.

After that, husbands are required to renew their foreign wives' visas every three years.

"There are cases where husbands threaten to revoke the visa if the wife wants to separate," said a member of the Immigrant Friends Office in Seoul, lawyer Lee Jin-hee.

Women with a marriage visa can work in South Korea and eventually become a permanent resident.

If the couple divorced and did not have children, the wife must return to her homeland, unless it was proven that her Korean husband was responsible for the breakdown of the marriage, or that she was a victim of abuse and needs time to recover.

"These institutional conditions have the effect of strengthening the power of Korean husbands," said Head of the Center for Migrant Human Rights, Hyo Young-sook. "Even when there are problems, immigrant women feel that they must preserve their unhappy marriage, due to these institutional issues."

In a 2017 poll conducted by the National Human Rights Commission, most of the foreign brides surveyed said they did not tell anyone about the domestic violence they experienced.

They said that they were embarrassed, not knowing what to say, and that they did not expect everything to change so quickly.

Economic world

Vietnamese women marry South Koreans, for economic reasons.

According to CIA World Facebook, the per capita GDP in Vietnam was $ 6,900 in 2017. In the same year, the per capita GDP in South Korea was $ 39,500.

Brides are often young, and they hope for a better life.

According to a 2017 government survey, the average age of applicants to a brokerage office was 43.6 years, while the average age of foreign brides was 25.2 years.

Experts and officials disagree on how to classify this cross-border trend.

The United Nations Global Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking says that Vietnamese women are trafficked to a number of countries, including South Korea, for "forced marriage."

However, a member of the Seoul Immigrant Friends Office, Attorney Lee Jin-hee, believes that foreign brides choose to come to South Korea, even if the main reason is to send money to their families back home, not for their own benefit.

In Trinh's case, court documents indicated that she had gone to South Korea voluntarily.

"The victim trusted the defendant, so she left Vietnam and started her life in South Korea," Judge Kang said.

A glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel

"Koreans often express their feeling of inferiority toward the West, and think that they are victims of racism, but they feel better than citizens of countries where economic conditions are not good, such as Korea," says lawyer Lee Jin-hee, a member of the Immigrant Friends Office in Seoul.

It is for this reason that "migrant women face multi-layered discrimination - often it is gender discrimination and racial discrimination, along with institutional issues, that create problems," Lee says.

This can happen in several ways, as women often feel discriminated against by their extended family, their mothers-in-law may complain about their cooking, and some families exclude foreign wives from making the decision, and many foreign wives do not get money to spend, and they must ask for it from Husbands.

But the tide is turning slowly.

This year, Justice Party lawmaker Jang Hae-young proposed an anti-discrimination bill, which, if passed, would be the first of its kind in the country.

South Korea does not have a law guaranteeing legal protection against discrimination for all citizens, including minorities.

The proposed bill aims to protect people who face discrimination, and gives the state the power to resolve disputes and protect individuals.

Jang believes that, if approved, it could help immigrant women, although the law does not specifically mention abuse against them.

However, it prohibits indirect discrimination, which causes physical or mental pain to a group or individual.

But Lee's lawyer does not believe the bill will be a quick fix for migrant women.

Instead, he believes the bill will help bring about social transformation, and improve awareness of racial discrimination at work, school and home.

"I think that will discourage people from hate speech, and encourage them to correct their behavior," he says.

At least people will know what the behavior and words are discriminatory and punishable. ”

The

In a 2017 poll conducted by the National Human Rights Commission, most of the foreign brides surveyed said that they did not tell anyone about the domestic violence they had experienced.

South Korea does not have a law that guarantees legal protection against discrimination for all citizens, including minorities.

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