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.
* * * * *
To recapitulate a little, the matchmaking agencies arrange
packaged tours to Vietnam (or Cambodia, Kalimantan, or wherever
next), during which eager bachelors (almost always Chinese. often
in their late 30s or 40s) choose a potential bride from a line-up.
Then a few social dates are set up and a decision to get married is
made in another day or two.
Within the same week-long packaged trip, a wedding is organised
and by the week's end, they're husband and wife. If you believe
this is all wonderfully romantic, if you believe these are affairs
of the heart, God bless you.
On the face of it, such businesses make money from the package
tours and the introduction fees. But the arrangements made between
the matchmaking agency and the girls (or their families) comes in
various shades, and aren't free from financial entanglements
either. Some of the darker shades may involve daughters sold to
these agencies by families in financial distress. See also the
article, Parents in
denial, children at risk where I wrote,
In Cambodia, a commonly reported scenario is one where the
mother or older relative takes a young girl to a brothel, and using
her as collateral, obtains a loan. The girl then has to work off
the bond.
Do note however, that in the above paragraph, I was referring to
child prostitution. In this article I do not imply that the "girls"
or "women" from Vietnam or wherever are underage.
* * * * *
Below is what my reader, Terence, told me. He has a trading
company, for which he has to travel frequently to Vietnam. He has
been watching this match-making business for some time, and in fact
has made enquiries out of curiosity.
According to his email, the match-making agencies who advertise
in Singapore are more than just trans-national between Vietnam and
Singapore. They have either branches or affiliates in Taiwan,
Malaysia and Indonesia as well, a point that will become pertinent
further down.
Not only do they have girls on parade in Saigon, they generally
have some girls available on the spot in Singapore too. If you go
to their local offices, he told me, you will be shown 6 or 7 girls
behind a big glass window.
The matchmakers are likely to tell you that the girls have been
"certified by local doctors to be HIV-free, VD-free and are
virgins," according to Terence.
He did a round of these places pretending to be an interested
customer and when he said he might be in financial difficulty, he
was "even offered an installment scheme by 3 agencies." He was
quite convinced the financing would come from "their friends in the
money-lending business." That is, loan sharks.
Terence has also spoken to matchmakers in Vietnam itself --
these are the native Vietnamese matchmakers, to be distinguished
from the Singaporean/Taiwanese matchmakers. Two part-time
matchmakers there are his friends. From them, he learnt of a very
different side to this whole business.
An important distinction is made by the Vietnamese matchmakers
between the 'good' girls and the, well I suppose we have to call
them the 'not so good' ones.
"Good parents," Terence was told, "will never allow their good
daughters to travel overseas for matchmaking."
In any case, "the usual time period for good, pretty girls to be
chosen in HCM city is approximately 1 to 2 weeks. They will not
take the risk of going overseas."
So who are those who are taken out of Vietnam by the
matchmakers? Terence tells me, these ones have been sold by their
families. Or perhaps they bonded themselves for a large loan.
They are then rotated around Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia
on social visit passes. If our officials want to do something about
this, Terence said, they can easily "check their passports for
verification."
If the girls are successfully matched, they have to pay "a tidy
sum... in return for the lodging and marketing cost."
But if 3 months (usually) have passed without success, they
"will be forced to take up part-time prostitution to repay the...
costs incurred by the matchmakers."
Thus Terence concluded: "Behind the scenes, these matchmakers
are actually big-time human traffickers as, in actual fact, they're
selling these girls to anyone, not just Singaporeans .....under the
cover of matchmaking."
"Many of these girls end up in the Middle Eastern countries as
prostitutes."
Terence learnt this from the Vietnamese matchmakers on his many
trips to Saigon.
Until a few years ago, girls were also on display in Taiwan and
Korea, but these countries, said Terence, have stopped this.
Singapore has not.
In fact, the agencies here are beginning to talk of girls from
Cambodia. The tentacles of this business are reaching more
countries.
* * * * *
Being able to speak Chinese is
presented as an asset in a potential bride; virtually no
Singaporeans are able to speak Vietnamese. But here, Terence had
something interesting to report, too.
"According to the Vietnamese
matchmakers," he said, "those girls who are able to speak Mandarin
are mostly divorcees from Taiwan or karaoke and massage palour
girls who have worked in HCM city."
As massage parlour girls, they might have had motivation and
opportunity to pick up some Mandarin to please travelling
businessmen from the region.
Yet, these matchmaking agencies invariably advertise that all
their girls on offer are virgins. If you believe that divorcees,
karaoke hostesses and masseuses are virgins, God bless you
again.
The real virgins are likely to be daughters sold by families in
financial distress, which in turn creates another set of problems.
After a successful match, they get very needy about money from
their husbands, and not surprisingly, many marriages end in divorce
(or the women simply run away). But by then, they may have picked
up some Mandarin, which means they can re-join the line-up at the
matchmaker's, this time with an additional language asset. Given
their circumstances, they have to try for another husband,
otherwise how will they continue to send money to the family? The
cycle is difficult to break out of.
* * * * *
Terence wrote to me because, watching the business, he feels
"that it is really shameful that the government is actually closing
more than an eye to it."
We let this business develop under our noses. Our Sunday Times
write glowing feature articles about Vietnamese and other quickie
brides.
If any reader knows what investigation and enforcement agencies
can intervene, whether domestic or international, please pass them
a copy of this story. Do something, or else we'll all be
collectively culpable. 
