Vietnam planning to set up overseas marriage brokerage

Police in Vietnam have repeatedly raided events in recent years at which shadowy brokers have paraded 100 or more young women before potential suitors, often South Koreans and Taiwanese o­n short “marriage holidays.”

Legalizing and regulating the sector would help protect Vietnamese women from domestic abuse, the government said o­n its official Web site.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem has ordered agencies to create a plan for Vietnam’s first accredited international matchmaking service in Ho Chi Minh City and submit it to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung by June, it said.

In recent years, the number of illegal marriage brokers has increased, drawing mostly o­n young women from the poor southern Mekong delta.

There have been several reports of maltreatment of Vietnamese wives by their new husbands in South Korea and Taiwan, societies that have more men than women because of widespread cultural preferences for male offspring.

In a raid last November, police detained seven South Korean men, two Vietnamese brokers and 161 local women in a rented house in Ho Chi Minh City.

South Korea last June launched a crackdown o­n matchmaking agencies that use racial stereotypes or distorted information, seeking to regulate a trend that has led to cases of spousal abuse, divorces and some suicides.

Seoul also started a program to help foreign brides better settle in South Korea, where authorities said 11 percent of marriages were interracial last year — a rate that reached 40 percent among farmers and fishermen.