Is it a good idea when Southeast Asian women marry foreign men?

Cross-border marriages have been steadily growing in number since the 1980s in Japan, and from the 1990s in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. In the case of Taiwan, marriages to foreign-born wives accounted for 13% of all new marriages in 2009, down from a high of 28% in 2003.

Does cross-border marriage represent citizens exercising a fundamental right recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Or, since many of these marriages involve forms of brokering, are they, as many critics contend, a form of human trafficking?

Marriages between women from less wealthy regions to men of affluent nations emerged as an aspect of the significant growth in global migration since the 1970s, with possibilities for mass travel on wide-bodied jets and the associated phenomenon of global mass tourism.

The first wave to catch public attention was Filipinas seeking spouses in countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. Relatively high levels of education and ability to speak English enabled these women to engage in correspondence courtships, brokered through third parties such as agents (often also travel agents) or magazines — in the case of Australia, Australian Post and Australian Singles.

This is the origin of the pejorative term “mail order bride.” which denied the agency of the women and disregarded the ways in which the couples negotiated relationships through mail, phone calls and face-to-face meetings.

When I interviewed transnational couples who had experienced correspondence courtships (including via the internet) their narratives commonly fixed on the moment when “the spark” between them was ignited: “And the rest is history” was a common phrase used.

The Australian experience gives us an important clue to how this phenomenon has further developed in East Asia. Many of the Filipinas who married Australians were urban, educated women who married men in mining towns in places such as Western Queensland or the Hunter Valley.

Earlier waves of Australian migration that attracted male industrial workers resulted in localized demographic imbalances. Correspondence courtships to seek a Filipina spouse was one of the few avenues open to these male migrants to marry and have a family life.

Brokering marriages

Another early global trend involved women from Thailand and the Philippines marrying Japanese men. Some of these were “entertainment marriages” with women migrants in the entertainment industry, but many brokered marriages echoed the Australian pattern, with farmers seeking a solution to their difficulties finding Japanese spouses.

Demographic imbalances have contributed to the rise of cross-border marriages (in the case of South Korea and Taiwan, as a consequence of sex selective abortions), as has increasing education levels creating new aspirations for women in East Asia whereby life as a farmers” wife does not appeal.

In urbanized Singapore, women want to “marry up” (encouraged by state-sponsored population control policies) so low-status men in low-paid jobs face difficulties marrying. They — or their parents — broker marriages with women from Vietnam and Thailand.

Is this a form of trafficking? Brokering cross-border marriages has become a business opportunity for companies that are often also employment or travel agents.

Men can pay up to US$10,000 to brokers, who might net US$1,000–$5,000 per transaction. But a significant proportion are still arranged by relatives. Often, the arranging of these transnational marriages is akin to customary forms of marriage brokerage. – Rappler.com

Read the rest of the story here. This story was previously published on Asia Sentinel, a platform for news, analysis and opinion on national and regional issues in Asia. 

Kathryn Robinson is a professor of anthropology at The Australian National University. 

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