July
2005
Matchmaking
or human trafficking?
I have written two previous articles about the quickie-bride
business in Vietnamese
brides and Vietnam's house
of virgins. In both, I expressed my strong opinion about how
unsavoury this kind of quickie match-making is.
Now, a
reader of Yawning Bread -- let's call him Terence -- has provided
me with information about an even seamier underside of this
business, which may qualify as human trafficking. Terence seems
convinced that Singapore is looking the other way while other
countries have been doing something about it.
Naturally, it is very
difficult to get hard proof about the most disturbing aspects of
his story, for the more sensitive the matter, the more closely the
businessmen involved will guard those secrets. This is something
that only determined investigators, able to set up undercover
operations, can penetrate.
But Terence's inside
information has an internally consistent logic and is very
plausible as a business method. Perhaps not all matchmaking
agencies operate like this, but among the lot, some will be using
the business model described below, not least because Singapore and
some other countries aren't doing anything to stop it.
http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2005/yax-464.htm