For the first time in seven months, Chinese national Chen
Yanfei, 31, came face-to-face with her missing husband - in front
of a court judge last Monday.
The Shenzhen resident asked him to cough up some money for their
four-year-old son. Singaporean Tan Jiak Hee, 59, is alleged to have
abandoned both Ms. Chen and their son last year.
Not only are banks and finance companies feeling the credit crunch,
the troubled economy is also claiming another group of victims -
foreign brides.
Various organisations report a rising number of foreign-born women
who say the same men who spent thousands of dollars to bring them
here are now withholding cash, threatening divorce, and in some
extreme cases, dumping them at the airport with a one-way ticket
home.
The Hainan Hwee Kuan, a clan association, said the number of
Hainanese brides it assists has more than doubled - from 25 to 56 -
since September last year.
Lawyer Cheng Kim Kuan, who handles legal disputes between foreign
brides and their husbands at the clan association for free, said he
receives one new case every week on average.
Many foreign brides say they are being abused at home - locked up
and not given money to spend. Others say they are treated like
maids.
Mr. Cheng said he expects this number to rise even further as more
jobs are lost. ‘These men think of their wives as expendable
objects, like furniture,’ he said.
Most of these men are mature blue-collar workers who cannot afford
new wives when their jobs are axed and belts have to be
tightened.
Ms. Fu Xi Bin of Heng Mei Matchmaking Services, which specialises
in recruiting Hainanese brides, called the men’s actions a
‘cost-cutting measure’.
‘Yes, it’s extreme, but not surprising if the man is not in love
with his wife.’
Ms. Susie Wong, chairman of women’s shelter, Star Shelter, said the
number of foreign brides it houses has doubled from four to eight
this month. ‘Under normal circumstances, there are already family
abuses cases. What more in a recession?’
Most of the women she helps are from the Philippines.
Brides from Vietnam, another popular locale for bachelors here to
source for partners, have felt the pinch too.
An embassy official estimates that the number of Vietnamese brides
who approach them for help has gone up from three to five a month
since last year.
‘Many people have lost their jobs,’ said one abandoned bride, who
asked not to be named. ‘We’re not so different.’
The cost of a foreign bride, including agency fees and airfares,
ranges from $5,000 to $10,000. In the last six months, at least 15
businesses here dealing in foreign brides have closed shop.
Without many friends and with no family here, foreign brides in
Singapore have little recourse when marriages turn sour.
Their plight is compounded by the fact that many hold only
long-term social visit passes which have to be renewed by their
husbands every 90 days - a rule that some use to coerce their wives
into keeping mum about being bullied.
Few can afford to hire lawyers and, unlike Singaporean wives, are
turned away from free or subsidised legal advice at centres whose
services are for citizens and permanent residents only.
In one extraordinary case reported to the Hainan Hwee Kuan last
December, a young Hainanese woman alleged that her husband forced
her to sign divorce papers before packing her off to the airport
the next day.
They had been married for less than a year and she was six months’
pregnant.
In the divorce papers, the man is said to have stated that he was
not financially responsible for his wife, nor their child once they
were back in China.
Ms. Chen is trying to avoid the same fate. In sworn affidavits
filed in court in January, she alleged that Mr. Tan had ‘neglected
and refused to provide any reasonable maintenance for our
child’.
Mr. Tan, a part-time project supervisor, has asked the judge to
consider his ‘financial plight and heavy financial obligations’
amid the economic downturn.
‘I don’t know how much longer I can work. I have exhausted my very
limited resources and my CPF savings and so I cannot continue to
provide for my child,’ he claimed. ‘As the cost of living is fairly
low in Shenzhen, my contribution of $50 per month should be more
than enough to see to the child’s needs.’