Bringing her two children from Taiwan to Vietnam, Thuy left her children with her mother in the southern province of Soc Trang and went to HCM City to work.
In a word: Girls – be careful!
Thuy, from An Thanh Nhat commune, Cu Lao Dung district, Soc Trang province; got married with a Taiwanese man and went to Taiwan with her husband. Four years ago, her husband died of fatal disease. Her mother-in-law and son-in-law cast out Thuy and her two children to appropriate her husband’s assets.
With bared hands, Thuy borrowed some money from her friends in Taiwan to buy air tickets to return to Vietnam. However, her mother was very poor and suffered from lung disease. One night, Thuy quietly left her children with her mother and went to HCM City to work.
Thuy’s mother, Mrs. Cam, said that for the past four years, Thuy’s husband family has never gone to Vietnam to visit the kids. Thuy only returned home twice a year to visit the children. Sometimes Thuy sent money to her mother to bring up the children.
When they were brought to Vietnam four years ago, the two children, Lin Yi Syun and Lin Shan Tai, couldn’t speak Vietnamese. They are now 5-6 years old and can speak Vietnamese very well. The kids don’t remember much about their parents.
There are some villages in the Soc Trang province which are called “Taiwan village”, because many girls in these villages are married to Taiwanese.
According to the local authorities, over 7,000 women in Soc Trang got married with foreigners, 70 percent with Taiwanese. In Cu Lao Dung district, there are over 400 girls in An Thanh Nhat alone, getting married with Taiwanese. Many of them were not happy in marriage due to language hindrances, conflicts with their husband and husband’s families, being beaten by their husbands and husband families, have escaped to Vietnam. Hundreds of mixed-blood children followed their mothers back to Vietnam.
Living far from their parents, but perhaps Thuy’s two children have a better life than a little girl named Nhu Y, in Long Hau commune, Lai Vung district, in the southern province of Dong Thap.
Living with her mother, the little girl was maltreated by her mother when the she was only nine months old. The mother is Nguyen Thi Xuan Lan, 29, who married a Taiwanese nine years ago. Being maltreated by her husband’s family, Lan left her husband’s home to work at a factory and lived with another Taiwanese man. In early 2009, she was pregnant and returned to Vietnam. After having a child, Nhu Y, lived with a man. Last August, the couple was arrested for beating the kid.
Not only mixed-blood children are victims of marriages between Vietnamese rural girls and foreign men, Vietnamese brides are victims.
A woman named Le Thi Kim Dong from Thoi Hung commune, Co Do district, Can Tho city, married a Korean man and followed her husband to South Korea, where she was maltreated by her husband. In April 2007, Dong tried to escape from her husband’s apartment by a door curtain. She fell from the balcony of the 9th floor and died after several days.
Last July, Thach Thi Hong Ngoc, 21, also from Co Do district, Can Tho city, was stabbed to death by her mental-ill husband just a week after she arrived in South Korea.
After sad stories of Vietnamese women who got married with foreigners to change their lives were reported on the local media, the movement to get married with foreign men has reduced in the southwestern region. However, the movement has recently spread in some northern provinces like Hai Duong, Hai Phong and Lang Son.
According to the Ministry of Labor, War invalids and Social Affairs, over 257,000 Vietnamese got married with foreigners or overseas Vietnamese from 2005 to 2010. However, the Ministry of Justice said that the figure is over 294,000. Most of them are Vietnamese women who got married with Taiwanese and Korean men.
