 |
| "Nepotism maximus" on display |
Click below to listen to the report:
Showing posts with label Arranged marriages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arranged marriages. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Phnom Penh's ire
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Korea Herald (South Korea)
EDITORIAL
The Korea Herald (South Korea)
EDITORIAL
The Cambodian government's recent "ban" on marriages between Korean men and Cambodian women for fear of human trafficking was a rare negative step in the generally amicable relations between the two countries. We hope Phnom Penh will soon return things to normal while we wonder how serious the crime is and at which end of the problem is most serious.
The Korean Embassy in Phnom Penh early this month was officially notified that the Cambodian authorities would suspend applications for international marriage between Cambodians and Koreans. The Cambodian action followed reports that a clampdown on marriage brokers in Vietnam drove many Korean men to seek spouses through brokers in neighboring Cambodia.
The intervention of brokers gives rise to allegations of human trafficking. Phnom Penh has prohibited marriage brokerage since 2008 but the number of Cambodian women marrying Korean men increased sharply from 551 in 2008 to 1,372 last year. The large number could include cases of false marriage aimed at immigration for employment. Korean police should seek the cooperation of Cambodian authorities to obtain information on illegal and immoral activities of the banned brokers and to clear unsubstantiated charges of human trafficking at our end.
An extensive survey of foreign spouses of Koreans conducted last year revealed high percentage of Asian women who are satisfied with their married life in Korea. The average income of multicultural families surveyed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last year was a little less than 2 million won a month compared to the average Korean household's 3.3 million won. But foreign-born wives showed a 74 percent satisfaction rate with their Korean spouses.
Cambodians ranked after Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos and Japanese last year. International marriages will continue to grow in Korea in the years ahead but any sudden ban from a foreign government for unsavory reasons such as human trafficking allegations will threaten the balanced growth of multicultural families in this country. Human trafficking is a most vicious crime and the governments involved should try their utmost in order to end it completely.
The Korean Embassy in Phnom Penh early this month was officially notified that the Cambodian authorities would suspend applications for international marriage between Cambodians and Koreans. The Cambodian action followed reports that a clampdown on marriage brokers in Vietnam drove many Korean men to seek spouses through brokers in neighboring Cambodia.
The intervention of brokers gives rise to allegations of human trafficking. Phnom Penh has prohibited marriage brokerage since 2008 but the number of Cambodian women marrying Korean men increased sharply from 551 in 2008 to 1,372 last year. The large number could include cases of false marriage aimed at immigration for employment. Korean police should seek the cooperation of Cambodian authorities to obtain information on illegal and immoral activities of the banned brokers and to clear unsubstantiated charges of human trafficking at our end.
An extensive survey of foreign spouses of Koreans conducted last year revealed high percentage of Asian women who are satisfied with their married life in Korea. The average income of multicultural families surveyed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last year was a little less than 2 million won a month compared to the average Korean household's 3.3 million won. But foreign-born wives showed a 74 percent satisfaction rate with their Korean spouses.
Cambodians ranked after Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos and Japanese last year. International marriages will continue to grow in Korea in the years ahead but any sudden ban from a foreign government for unsavory reasons such as human trafficking allegations will threaten the balanced growth of multicultural families in this country. Human trafficking is a most vicious crime and the governments involved should try their utmost in order to end it completely.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Five Cambodian women repatriated from Taiwan by NGO [-The curse of arranged marriage]
14 Jan 2009
By Leang Delux
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
By Leang Delux
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
Forced to work on the Chinese island, their several years of plight finally ended.
Since the beginning of the month, they have returned back to the kingdom one after another, following several years spent in Taiwan. The five women, between their 20s and 40s, have known the same misfortune. Their repatriation was organized by the CARAM (Coordination of Action Resarch on Aids and Mobility) NGO led by Ya Navuth.
The women’s stories were all sad. Send to Taiwan though arranged marriage, they were instead put on sale there and sustained physical abuse.
Sophea, a 34-year-old native of Kratie, spent 3-1/2 years away from home, working at a plastic cup manufacturing company. During a police raid at the factory, she was able to explain her situation to the cops who released her.
Two other women are about to return back also, but their family issue, linked to children they borne to Taiwanese citizens, make their cases more complicated.
Between 2000 and 2008, CARAM Cambodia had repatriated 200 women who fell prey to trafficking and were sent to Malaysia, Thailand, etc…
Since the beginning of the month, they have returned back to the kingdom one after another, following several years spent in Taiwan. The five women, between their 20s and 40s, have known the same misfortune. Their repatriation was organized by the CARAM (Coordination of Action Resarch on Aids and Mobility) NGO led by Ya Navuth.
The women’s stories were all sad. Send to Taiwan though arranged marriage, they were instead put on sale there and sustained physical abuse.
Sophea, a 34-year-old native of Kratie, spent 3-1/2 years away from home, working at a plastic cup manufacturing company. During a police raid at the factory, she was able to explain her situation to the cops who released her.
Two other women are about to return back also, but their family issue, linked to children they borne to Taiwanese citizens, make their cases more complicated.
Between 2000 and 2008, CARAM Cambodia had repatriated 200 women who fell prey to trafficking and were sent to Malaysia, Thailand, etc…
Monday, November 24, 2008
Cambodian family reunited after 8 years
Sunday, November 23, 2008 Times News-MagicValley.com (Twin Falls, Idaho, USA)
It was Sokry who first came to Twin Falls from Cambodia in 2000 to be with her new husband from an arranged marriage. Her two younger sisters followed: Davy in 2004 and Dany in 2006.
Earlier this year, her parents left Cambodia for good to be with their daughters.
It took eight years, but the Heng family is finally together again.
On this Wednesday evening, they gather around a hot pot dinner. The family dips rich pieces of raw beef into a boiling broth filled with vegetables and noodles. When the beef is cooked to their liking, they skillfully extract it with chopsticks.
It's a slow-paced, luxurious dinner - one that the family would have been hard to come by in Cambodia.
"Over there, they don't have a lot of variety,"Sokry says. Food is plentiful, but beef is eaten only in stew. Most people depend on fish and pork for their main meat intake.
Thirty years ago, the situation in Cambodia was much worse.
Dictator Pol Pot took over the country in 1975. Tens of thousands of victims of the regime were systematically tortured and executed. Peasants starved by the millions. Sokry's parents, Heng Ly and Houng Sok, survived on scant bowls of rice porridge and boiled banana leaves.
Houng gave birth to Sokry right after Pol Pot's regime ended in 1979, and the family's life stabilized. Houng and Heng opened a kitchenware store in Tbaung Khmum, an industrial city of 10,000. They sold chopsticks, spoons, bowls and cups during the day and lived on the second floor of the store at night.
"We lived well,"Sokry said.
In Twin Falls, the family is maintaining the good life. Sokry's husband, Yip Tse, works at Pak N Ship. The couple also owns Asian Food Market in TwinFalls, where Sokry and Dany work. Sokry and Yip share a duplex with their parents and Dany, while Davy lives with her husband (and Yip's older brother),Ken.
The sisters followed tradition in taking their father's first name as their family name, and the two young wives kept it after marrying.
Tonight, the whole family comes to the duplex to share the meal. They pile the food on two folding tables in the living room. A Buddhist shrine sits on the floor next to the entertainment center.
Yip is the last to arrive, to his wife's playful admonishment.
"Some of us have to work for a living!"Yip teases.
Their son, also named Yip but called "little Ken," runs around, pretending to shoot his family with a plastic Nerf gun. Unlike his grandparents, it's the closest the 5-year-old has come to violence.
Twenty years ago in Cambodia, armed bandits came to their city, robbing, beating and killing the family's neighbors. They came as close as the house next door but spared the Hengs' home. Sokry was 10 years old.
"They were probably too young to remember," she said of her sisters.
Now, the country is safer and provides a higher standard of living. Electricity is available 24 hours a day instead of being shut off at 11 p.m. nightly.
"It's great now,"Sokry said.
But memories of political unrest and civil violence are still fresh. When asked what she likes about Twin Falls, the first thing Dany says is: "It's safe."
Brothers Yip and Ken Tse were born in Cambodia, but moved to Idaho when they were children. Yip's cousin in Cambodia knew Sokry and suggested the two marry. They agreed, and the husband and wife didn't meet until Yip came to Cambodia for their wedding.
"It's just Cambodian tradition,"Sokry said. "It worked out well."
At the wedding, Davy met Ken. Four years later they wed, and Ken whisked her away to TwinFalls, too.
Over dinner, Dany, the youngest at 24, talks about Cambodia between bites of beef and rice.
"Imiss my grandma and all my cousins," she says. "Even though sometimes here looks better than Cambodia, it's my motherland."
Twin Falls is too cold, she adds. Before coming here, she had never seen snow. It rarely dips below 70 degrees in her home country.
"I love the weather in Cambodia a lot," she says, smiling wistfully.
Unlike her older sisters, Dany didn't have a husband waiting for her in Twin Falls. She came to be with Sokry and Davy in 2006, but immediately regretted the move.
Every day, she cried. She missed her parents and grandparents. She didn't speak English and couldn't understand the customers at work.
"She cried for months,"Sokry said.
Slowly, she started feeling more at home. She took English classes at College of Southern Idaho and practiced with customers and co-workers. Soon, she wouldn't shut up, Yip teased.
With Dany gone, Heng and Houng had little reason to stay in Cambodia. Sokry, family friend Bert Cobb and Yip's mother, Lan Tse, helped the couple apply to move to Twin Falls, a process that took two years. When they arrived in March, the two didn't speak a word of English and felt bad about leaving their siblings and elderly parents in Cambodia. But in the end, what mattered most was being with their daughters.
Although Cambodia is a world away, the Heng family is comfortable here.
They can buy most of their favorite foods, like noodles and lychee fruit drinks, through Asian Food Market. Houng accompanies her daughters at work, where she silently helps around the store. At home, the two young married couples flirt in both Cambodian and English. Dany posts handwritten signs around the house in an attempt to teach her parents English vocabulary. They watch the news in English and listen to Cambodian music.
And at the end of the day, they're rewarded with family dinners together in their comfortable, crowded living room.
Melissa Davlin may be reached at 208-735-3234 or melissa.davlin@lee.net.
Earlier this year, her parents left Cambodia for good to be with their daughters.
It took eight years, but the Heng family is finally together again.
On this Wednesday evening, they gather around a hot pot dinner. The family dips rich pieces of raw beef into a boiling broth filled with vegetables and noodles. When the beef is cooked to their liking, they skillfully extract it with chopsticks.
It's a slow-paced, luxurious dinner - one that the family would have been hard to come by in Cambodia.
"Over there, they don't have a lot of variety,"Sokry says. Food is plentiful, but beef is eaten only in stew. Most people depend on fish and pork for their main meat intake.
Thirty years ago, the situation in Cambodia was much worse.
Dictator Pol Pot took over the country in 1975. Tens of thousands of victims of the regime were systematically tortured and executed. Peasants starved by the millions. Sokry's parents, Heng Ly and Houng Sok, survived on scant bowls of rice porridge and boiled banana leaves.
Houng gave birth to Sokry right after Pol Pot's regime ended in 1979, and the family's life stabilized. Houng and Heng opened a kitchenware store in Tbaung Khmum, an industrial city of 10,000. They sold chopsticks, spoons, bowls and cups during the day and lived on the second floor of the store at night.
"We lived well,"Sokry said.
In Twin Falls, the family is maintaining the good life. Sokry's husband, Yip Tse, works at Pak N Ship. The couple also owns Asian Food Market in TwinFalls, where Sokry and Dany work. Sokry and Yip share a duplex with their parents and Dany, while Davy lives with her husband (and Yip's older brother),Ken.
The sisters followed tradition in taking their father's first name as their family name, and the two young wives kept it after marrying.
Tonight, the whole family comes to the duplex to share the meal. They pile the food on two folding tables in the living room. A Buddhist shrine sits on the floor next to the entertainment center.
Yip is the last to arrive, to his wife's playful admonishment.
"Some of us have to work for a living!"Yip teases.
Their son, also named Yip but called "little Ken," runs around, pretending to shoot his family with a plastic Nerf gun. Unlike his grandparents, it's the closest the 5-year-old has come to violence.
Twenty years ago in Cambodia, armed bandits came to their city, robbing, beating and killing the family's neighbors. They came as close as the house next door but spared the Hengs' home. Sokry was 10 years old.
"They were probably too young to remember," she said of her sisters.
Now, the country is safer and provides a higher standard of living. Electricity is available 24 hours a day instead of being shut off at 11 p.m. nightly.
"It's great now,"Sokry said.
But memories of political unrest and civil violence are still fresh. When asked what she likes about Twin Falls, the first thing Dany says is: "It's safe."
Brothers Yip and Ken Tse were born in Cambodia, but moved to Idaho when they were children. Yip's cousin in Cambodia knew Sokry and suggested the two marry. They agreed, and the husband and wife didn't meet until Yip came to Cambodia for their wedding.
"It's just Cambodian tradition,"Sokry said. "It worked out well."
At the wedding, Davy met Ken. Four years later they wed, and Ken whisked her away to TwinFalls, too.
Over dinner, Dany, the youngest at 24, talks about Cambodia between bites of beef and rice.
"Imiss my grandma and all my cousins," she says. "Even though sometimes here looks better than Cambodia, it's my motherland."
Twin Falls is too cold, she adds. Before coming here, she had never seen snow. It rarely dips below 70 degrees in her home country.
"I love the weather in Cambodia a lot," she says, smiling wistfully.
Unlike her older sisters, Dany didn't have a husband waiting for her in Twin Falls. She came to be with Sokry and Davy in 2006, but immediately regretted the move.
Every day, she cried. She missed her parents and grandparents. She didn't speak English and couldn't understand the customers at work.
"She cried for months,"Sokry said.
Slowly, she started feeling more at home. She took English classes at College of Southern Idaho and practiced with customers and co-workers. Soon, she wouldn't shut up, Yip teased.
With Dany gone, Heng and Houng had little reason to stay in Cambodia. Sokry, family friend Bert Cobb and Yip's mother, Lan Tse, helped the couple apply to move to Twin Falls, a process that took two years. When they arrived in March, the two didn't speak a word of English and felt bad about leaving their siblings and elderly parents in Cambodia. But in the end, what mattered most was being with their daughters.
Although Cambodia is a world away, the Heng family is comfortable here.
They can buy most of their favorite foods, like noodles and lychee fruit drinks, through Asian Food Market. Houng accompanies her daughters at work, where she silently helps around the store. At home, the two young married couples flirt in both Cambodian and English. Dany posts handwritten signs around the house in an attempt to teach her parents English vocabulary. They watch the news in English and listen to Cambodian music.
And at the end of the day, they're rewarded with family dinners together in their comfortable, crowded living room.
Melissa Davlin may be reached at 208-735-3234 or melissa.davlin@lee.net.
Monday, April 21, 2008
S Korean Embassy in Cambodia denies accusation of human trafficking
PHNOM PENH, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean Embassy has denied the accusation by the Cambodian government that its country's marriage brokerage companies in Cambodia engaged in human trafficking, a national media said on Monday.
Ambassador Shin Hyun-suk expressed regret that Cambodian officials had used the term "human trafficking" to identify the way that was legally permitted to arrange "married life in the era of globalization," English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Daily quoted his statement as saying.
"I have so far never heard those words of threats, kidnapping, deception and abuse, as well as using force or taking a chance when the victims are weak, for the purpose of making business in marriages between Cambodians and Koreans. They all get married out of their own free will, according to the procedures of both countries," he said.
However, he also admitted that "some aspects of the system of international marriages need to be improved and corrected."
The Cambodian government indefinitely banned marriages between Cambodians and foreigners from all countries on March 29, following the release of an International Organization of Migration report warning of the vulnerability of Cambodian brides, who have been flocking to South Korea in increasing numbers over the past few years.
Ambassador Shin Hyun-suk expressed regret that Cambodian officials had used the term "human trafficking" to identify the way that was legally permitted to arrange "married life in the era of globalization," English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Daily quoted his statement as saying.
"I have so far never heard those words of threats, kidnapping, deception and abuse, as well as using force or taking a chance when the victims are weak, for the purpose of making business in marriages between Cambodians and Koreans. They all get married out of their own free will, according to the procedures of both countries," he said.
However, he also admitted that "some aspects of the system of international marriages need to be improved and corrected."
The Cambodian government indefinitely banned marriages between Cambodians and foreigners from all countries on March 29, following the release of an International Organization of Migration report warning of the vulnerability of Cambodian brides, who have been flocking to South Korea in increasing numbers over the past few years.
Friday, November 30, 2007
What is love but to know and to be known by another.
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 16 / 24, November 30 – December 13, 2007There are different types and degrees of love. There is the universal love we have for society and mankind (humanity); there is love we have for our friends (amity); there is love we have for our parents, siblings and relatives (familial); there is romantic love which is jealous and possessive as it should be; and for those of us who hold religious beliefs, there is perfect, unconditional love (agape love of God).
We know love is fundamental to survival, as one study tells us of a twin raised separately-the one raised without love died quickly and grimly, the other nurtured by love lived on in health.
We find everyone in every nation in every language singing about love; love is truly what makes the world go round.
Romantic love: Arranged marriages
Here, I am interested in focusing on one of the loves-romantic love, particularly on the rapid changes of Cambodian culture on one expression of romantic love, arranged marriages. As we know, culture is not static. It changes with time and the needs driving society.
I find sublime beauty behind the ideal of bringing two people together into a union based not on external love or appearance (more commonly known as lust), but rather an internal love that burns with the passage of time. Herein exists complete safety, for love casts out all fear. I have witnessed the wonderful working of this arrangement in the relationships of my aunts and uncles.
But notice it is the 'ideal' of arranged marriages that I admire. This custom suits a society where the parents of the couple know each other's background because of the close-knit community they live in. There is truth in the rebuttable presumption that the parents know best.
However, that assumption resonates but faintly in a situation where the individual's world is no longer limited by village life but extends to life away from the parents. The greater the experiences of the parents and the children diverge, the less convincing is the argument for arranged marriages.
Moreover, the ethereal ideal of arranged marriages is more likely than not tainted by practical calculations, for we are after all rational beings. The arranged union of two individuals can and often does turn into business deals. My maternal grandfather Kuy shrewdly broke off an engagement for my father when a richer, well-established suitor came along.
Additionally, in an arranged marriage, the dowry given by man is often viewed as a bride price. This in turn establishes a mentality of property that can lead to abuse of the woman, either physically or emotionally whereby the man engages in profligacy.
My dear, dear family. I believe now they have given up all hope of ever arranging anything for me. But only after I have had to suffer an earful many times over their fear of me evolving into an old maid, kramome chah.
"A woman is like a flower," so begins their parable. "She blooms and many choice men are attracted toward her like many bees are attracted to a flower. But then the flower wilts; so too a woman. Men desire youth. If you wait too long, you will no longer be desirable. You don't want to settle."
Alright. My aunts did not exactly use an original metaphor for I am certain other daughters across the myriad of cultures have heard similar doomed prognosis.
Correspondingly, I am frequently asked the qualities I look for in a man. But I believe this is the wrong question to ask. I can list all the traits in the world, but my listing them has little power to affect or alter another's character.
I find it more instructive to ask instead: what are the qualities I want to develop within myself? In preparation for a future mate. In preparation for life in general. Here, I possess the power to affect the change.
Love actually, love universally
But let us come back and frame the example above of romantic love within the larger context of the universal elements and definition of love and what it means for the development of our society. For if love is so fundamental, so universal, and necessary for survival, does it not make perfect sense that we should do everything as a society to foster and encourage love? If we are to look around in current Cambodian society, are we?
Let us be reminded of what love looks like:
And now I will show you the most excellent way.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(I Corinthians 13, the Holy Bible)
Theary C. SENG
Executive Director
Past columns can be found at www.csdcambodia.org
We know love is fundamental to survival, as one study tells us of a twin raised separately-the one raised without love died quickly and grimly, the other nurtured by love lived on in health.
We find everyone in every nation in every language singing about love; love is truly what makes the world go round.
Romantic love: Arranged marriages
Here, I am interested in focusing on one of the loves-romantic love, particularly on the rapid changes of Cambodian culture on one expression of romantic love, arranged marriages. As we know, culture is not static. It changes with time and the needs driving society.
I find sublime beauty behind the ideal of bringing two people together into a union based not on external love or appearance (more commonly known as lust), but rather an internal love that burns with the passage of time. Herein exists complete safety, for love casts out all fear. I have witnessed the wonderful working of this arrangement in the relationships of my aunts and uncles.
But notice it is the 'ideal' of arranged marriages that I admire. This custom suits a society where the parents of the couple know each other's background because of the close-knit community they live in. There is truth in the rebuttable presumption that the parents know best.
However, that assumption resonates but faintly in a situation where the individual's world is no longer limited by village life but extends to life away from the parents. The greater the experiences of the parents and the children diverge, the less convincing is the argument for arranged marriages.
Moreover, the ethereal ideal of arranged marriages is more likely than not tainted by practical calculations, for we are after all rational beings. The arranged union of two individuals can and often does turn into business deals. My maternal grandfather Kuy shrewdly broke off an engagement for my father when a richer, well-established suitor came along.
Additionally, in an arranged marriage, the dowry given by man is often viewed as a bride price. This in turn establishes a mentality of property that can lead to abuse of the woman, either physically or emotionally whereby the man engages in profligacy.
My dear, dear family. I believe now they have given up all hope of ever arranging anything for me. But only after I have had to suffer an earful many times over their fear of me evolving into an old maid, kramome chah.
"A woman is like a flower," so begins their parable. "She blooms and many choice men are attracted toward her like many bees are attracted to a flower. But then the flower wilts; so too a woman. Men desire youth. If you wait too long, you will no longer be desirable. You don't want to settle."
Alright. My aunts did not exactly use an original metaphor for I am certain other daughters across the myriad of cultures have heard similar doomed prognosis.
Correspondingly, I am frequently asked the qualities I look for in a man. But I believe this is the wrong question to ask. I can list all the traits in the world, but my listing them has little power to affect or alter another's character.
I find it more instructive to ask instead: what are the qualities I want to develop within myself? In preparation for a future mate. In preparation for life in general. Here, I possess the power to affect the change.
Love actually, love universally
But let us come back and frame the example above of romantic love within the larger context of the universal elements and definition of love and what it means for the development of our society. For if love is so fundamental, so universal, and necessary for survival, does it not make perfect sense that we should do everything as a society to foster and encourage love? If we are to look around in current Cambodian society, are we?
Let us be reminded of what love looks like:
And now I will show you the most excellent way.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(I Corinthians 13, the Holy Bible)
Theary C. SENG
Executive Director
Past columns can be found at www.csdcambodia.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
