Vietnam Women's Union

Raising capacities for Marriage Supporting Centers of provincial/municipal Women’s Union (WU)

19/04/2007

Consensusly working out an overall and general action plan for 5 years of implementing the Project on International Marriage Supporting, in accordance with the practical conditions of Provincial/Municipal Marriage Supporting Centers was the content of the Orientation workshop on the International Marriage Supporting Project co-organized by the VWU and the Vietnam Women’s Cultural Center (VWCC – Republic of Korea) from 14th to 15th March, 2007 at the Head office of the Central VWU.

According to the statistics by VWCC in RoK, more than 13% of Korean men (30% of which are rural men) get married with foreign women, among whom the majority is the Vietnamese. The trend that Vietnamese women get married with Korean men is becoming more and more popular. From 2005 to 2006, the number of cases increased from 5,822 (accounting for 18.7% of the total international marriages in Vietnam) to 6,100. A small number of Vietnamese women have happy lives in RoK. However, the majority face difficulties of domestic violence or other bad situations.

In order to help the Vietnamese women integrate and enjoy stable and happy lives as well as prevent and minimize illegal matchmaking cases, the International Marriage Supporting Office (IMSO), under the Vietnam Women’s Union was established and mandated to study and to advise the Central VWU and Vietnam Government Agencies on international marriage related issues; support to enhance the operation capacities for existing Marriage Supporting Centers of provincial/municipal Women’s Unions; promote the establishment of new centers. In short term, the process will be carried out in 2 phases: 1^st phase for upgrading 10 Centers which have had establishment decision; 2^nd phase for promoting 10 newly founded Centers. Estimatedly, in 5 years, 40 centers will have been established and supported to operate.

Despite of their recent foundation in 2003, those centers have supported 2,700 marriages with foreigners. However, the number of cases in reality is much higher than that. A great number of illegal matchmaking cases have resulted in unhappy marriages and many women have become victims of women traffickers. As a result, it is a need to establish marriage-supporting centers with appropriate legal status, having regular information exchange and two-way contact and fully implementing the laws of the two governments.

At the workshop, representatives from WU, Provincial/Municipal Department of Justice and Marriage Supporting Centers of 11 provincial/municipal Women’s Union discussed, exchanged ideas to come to an agreement on the content and the regulations of cooperation, and gave recommendations and proposals to promote the effectiveness of the Centers. The Centers will provide the Vietnamese women with advices to get married with foreigners on the basis of voluntariness, equality, advancement, happiness and faithfulness.