Labour exports ‘threaten’ family happiness

Many Vietnamese women have chosen to work overseas in the hope of changing their families’ economic status. However, quite a few of them have faced unexpected cracks in their family lives as a result of this.

In fact, the sending of workers abroad has been an important channel to handle unemployment and help workers escape poverty. The amount of remittances sent home by such guest workers has reached billions of US dollars. But coming along with this positive trend are a series of social impacts, especially those on marriage and families.

Vietnam now has nearly half a million people working in more than 40 nations and territories. Each year, the country sends some 80,000 workers overseas to work. Women make up about 30 percent of these figures. And the immigration of these women is seen as the cause of many broken homes in rural areas.

The circumstances of some of these women were vividly reflected in a story, entitled I’m a woman, by writer Y Ban. The story is about a good-natured Vietnamese woman who goes to Taiwan to work as a domestic for a local family. The husband is disabled following a serious traffic accident. Gradually, a romantic relationship grows stronger between the Taiwanese man and the Vietnamese woman. They sleep together and the infidelity is later discovered by the man’s wife through a hidden camera.

The story is based on what really happened several years ago, with a similar woman convicted of ‘sexually abusing’ her boss. Of course, this woman was much reviled by many. But some people showed sympathy for women who had to leave their homeland for work.

Labour exports have given the Minh Tan commune in the northern province of Hung Yen a new lease of life. The local people’s committee chairman, Hoang Van Hay, proudly spoke about the commune’s vigorous economic growth rate of 16 percent, resulting in the appearance of nearly 300 multi-storey houses and good, large roads.

“Many people think our commune is actually a borough… Nearly 400 of our residents have gone abroad to work, mainly in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan… We have tried to offer the best possible conditions, from capital to procedures, for them to work overseas.”

But, Mr Hay sighed as he talked about the negative side of such development. “Some families break up when the female guest workers return. Some women, who have accumulated a great amount of money, end up forsaking their own husband and children… We have tried to intervene but failed to prevent them from divorcing…”

A labour management officer in Phu Cu district says that after working abroad some women have returned with children of a foreign nationality. Talking about the negative impact of labour exports, the officer elaborates: “Some women in rural areas find they no longer love their husbands once they return. They get involved in love affairs outside the marriage, and wind up leaving the homeland again to work overseas.”

The officer is also concerned about the practice of abortion in areas where female Vietnamese guest workers are living.

Problems are not only emerging from guest workers but also from their relatives at home. When the mother is not present, her children are not taken care of as well, although they get more money from their mother abroad.

In more beautiful houses and with better material living conditions, many husbands drink alcohol, play cards and fall in love with other girls. In a recent consultancy programme on domestic violence, a woman from Ha Nam province has made a phone call talking about her miserable conditions when she came back home after finishing her three-year contract working overseas. She said her husband has spent all the money she sent back and she is suffering domestic violence. Her husband even tries to kick her out of the house and take away all of her rights.

Another example is Vu Thi Hien from Thanh Hoa. Due to poor living conditions, Hien decided to work overseas to save money to pay back her family’s debt. Three years later she came back and cleared all the debt. However, her family has fallen apart. Her husband is always drunk, having spent a lot of money on drinking and playing cards. His violence is so ruthless that she has finally decided to divorce him.

A deputy chairman of a provincial People’s Committee recently raised her voice against female labour exports in her province. However, she has failed to prevent the trend of sending female workers abroad as most families in the province are facing poor living conditions.

Visiting a family in Cu Nam commune, Bo Trach district in the central province of Quang Binh, we feel moved when seeing a father hugging two little babies while the youngest is still breast-feeding. The father said that his family is so poor that his wife had to leave the infant baby at home to work in Russia to earn more money to support the family.

Some guest workers have no luck finding a suitable job in foreign countries. Without money, they cannot get back home and find themselves trapped in a hard life overseas.