The Lament of the Foreign Brides

"Foreign marriages" are certainly not new in Taiwan, but until the '80s it was mainly Taiwan girls marrying Americans, Japanese and other men from developed countries. From the '80s on the situation reversed itself. Influenced by the economic take-off, the "go south policy," the rise in the socio-economic position of women and other such factors, Taiwan men began to look outward and "go south" or "go west" in droves to Southeast Asia or mainland China in search of marriage partners.

Although for the last 20 years foreign marriages have had their share of happy and satisfied couples as well as those who just make the best of it-no different from the average marriage-we have been seeing TV news stories every so often where foreign brides are the subject of abuse. Some women, unable to bear the situation any longer, leap to their deaths taking their children with them. Other women use the excuse of returning to their native villages to visit relatives and are never heard from again. One can certainly infer that aside from the women in these news stories, many more foreign brides are submitting to abuse and humiliation in silence and have no one to turn to.

A survey conducted in Kaohsiung County showed a clear rising trend in the number of domestic violence cases reported by foreign brides. Before 1998 the number of such reports was in the single digits. After 1998 there was a yearly increase such that by the end of April, 2001, there was a monthly average of seven reports.

Professor Lin Wan-i of the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University, points out that incidents of domestic violence among couples today now exceeds 5%, but that there are many hidden cases that go unreported. The number of unreported cases involving international marriages is even higher.

Sister Therese Tang, executive director of the Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services Foundation, feels we must treat the issue of international marriages with great care as they will profoundly influence Taiwan's next generation. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

Shattered dreams

Since the establishment in 1992 of Taiwan's first women's and children's shelter, the Catholic Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services Foundation has continued to minister to foreign-born wives who have been the victims of domestic violence.

One Vietnamese bride who had been intent upon becoming a Taiwan "taitai" (wife) discovered after her arrival here that she was "treated like a maid." Everyone in the family thought they had the right to boss her around. Because her husband had originally borrowed money to travel to Vietnam to marry her and was now still eking out a living, she had hoped to go out and find work, thus helping her husband pay back the money. But because she did not have legal residence status, she was unable to get permission to do this. Even more tragically, her husband and his family freely beat her. These beatings led to two miscarriages. A friend told her she could report this, and she did go several times to the police station. But because her head injuries were not immediately apparent, the police said they saw no signs of beating and sent her away. From then on she no longer had any faith in the police and simply wandered around alone for several months. A kind-hearted individual then put her on a train from Kaohsiung to Taipei where a woman took her in for a week or so. She finally made her way to the Good Shepherd Sisters Foundation and its "protective shelter."

Twenty-five-year-old Ah-Mei (not her real name) married and came to Taiwan three years ago and has a two-year-old son. Her 40-something husband could not support himself and lived with his family. As a result, Ah-Mei had to look after the entire family, including her husband's younger sister and brother-in-law, and had to do all the work around the house. Following her pregnancy, an undernourished Ah-Mei began to suffer from arthritis but had no money to see a doctor. To lighten the family's burdens, Ah-Mei went out and found a job to provide living expenses. Because of this her husband's younger sister beat her, cursing her as a "piece of garbage," and took her son away from her. Ah-Mei's husband, who had originally treated her fairly well, now stood with his family, demanded a divorce and took her to court.

Ah-Mei hasn't seen her own son for more than six months and has no idea what to do. "I'd like to stay in Taiwan, if only they would let me see my child," she says.

When Taiwan men began using the "go south policy" and the "go west policy" as a way to solve the "family problem," more and more "import brides" became Taiwan's latest immigrants, and also created a new variable in Taiwan society. (photo by Chuang Kun-ju)

Words that cannot be spoken

For many couples the goal of marriage differs-men are after a family, women are after a better life-and this has serious implications for the survival of international marriages. Differences in language and culture also easily lead to conflict.

"These women and children have no support at all from friends or the bride's family. When they run into problems they are lost," says Sister Therese Tang, executive director of the Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services Foundation. The language barrier often means they have no clue about how to seek help, to the point where they even accept violence as a natural part of their daily life, as their unalterable fate. This is the reason foreign brides suffer a high level of domestic violence.

Sister Therese says women spend varying amounts of time in the Good Shepherd center. During an average two-week to three-month stay of an urgent case, the social workers first try to get an understanding of the new bride's background and situation. They then give some "emotional first-aid" to put the women at ease. Finally they focus on the particularities of each individual case and offer assistance. In some cases they help draft legal complaints and file lawsuits, in others where the women are divorced they help raise ticket money so the women can return home.

But the experience of being the targets of violence has led many foreign brides to distrust Taiwanese. "There are some battered foreign brides who loathe Taiwanese and think all Taiwanese are evil, and even distrust the social workers themselves," says Vietnamese-born Sister Mei of the Good Shepherd Sisters. Current law stipulates that even foreign brides who have legal residence must return home if they get divorced, without the possibility of taking their children with them. This last point is very difficult to bear and they frequently feel the social workers are unwilling to help them. Although many foreign brides find themselves in unhappy marriages, they grin and bear it for the sake of the children and become one of the "hidden number" of battered women.

Although most people think international marriages lack an emotional foundation, if both partners work hard at it and society is ready to help, a full and happy marriage can still be expected. (photo by Hseuh Chi-kuang)

The protection hotline

The Kaohsiung County survey revealed that 80% of the foreign brides seeking help for domestic violence had used the local language. This showed that most of those able to seek outside help were good in the language. Thus how to obtain information and assistance is obviously very important to those who are hindered by a lack of fluency in Chinese.

In mid-April of this year the Ministry of the Interior engaged the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to set up a "foreign spouse protection hotline" that at specific and separate times would make available a telephone advisory service in English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai and Cambodian. The phones would be manned by volunteers from these various countries who would help solve the problems of young foreign-born wives.

Nguyen Hoa Lan came to Taiwan five years ago. When she was in Vietnam she had heard about Vietnamese brides in Taiwan and their predicament. After arriving in Taiwan to study, she very much wanted to get in contact with them but to her dismay found no opportunity to do so. Several months ago, introduced by a classmate at Chinese Culture University, she went to the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to become a hotline volunteer and take phone calls during the Vietnamese time slot.

"Many are beaten by their father-in-law, mother-in-law and husband," Nguyen says with great anxiety about her compatriots. "On the phone I tell them to have their injuries examined, to go to the police, but they cannot speak Chinese very well and have no friends to help them. It is very difficult. I can only get in touch with the Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Prevention Center for them and ask the Center to send personnel to help or give them some information, to give them some avenues where they can get assistance. But I don't know whether they can do anything on their own . . . ."

Sadly, even if these women do seek outside help, under current law, there is no perfect solution to the predicament and dilemma they face.

For one thing, foreign brides must reside in Taiwan for three years before they acquire legal resident status, and without this status they cannot work, and thus cannot support themselves. For this reason even if one escapes an abusive household, it is still very difficult to survive independently.

Even worse, however, innocent children regularly pose a dilemma for abused foreign spouses: should they leave or stay? Once she decides to get a divorce, a foreign bride must leave Taiwan. But because the mother and child do not share the same citizenship, the mother cannot get custody and take the child with her, and so must suffer the pain of separation.

Ah-Chuan (not her real name) married and came to Taiwan many years ago. She has a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. Because her husband is a jobless gambler, debtors were always coming to her door, depriving her of any sense of security, so she filed for divorce. Although the divorce agreement clearly stipulates that Ah-Chuan may see her children once a week for one hour, after several visits the parents-in-law prevented any further contact with her children and even beat her. The social workers wanted to help Ah-Chuan draft a complaint and sue but Ah-Chuan was afraid that if she did that, her chances of winning were not at all certain and she would be burning her bridges behind her. She was hesitant to take the case to litigation and instead bore her agony in silence.

Marriage and birth statistics on foreigners and mainland Chinese (DGBAS, August 2003)chart by Wei Chin-hua

Taiwan's children

In addition to the "unspoken" pain of domestic violence that foreign spouses have been forced to endure, their children's upbringing has become another thing plaguing the diffident brides from abroad.

Statistics show the number of children that have been born to international marriages now exceeds that of children born to Aboriginal parents. In the year 2002 there were more than 247,000 births in the Taiwan Area, including Kinmen and Matsu. Of these, more than 30,000 were born to foreign (including mainland Chinese) women. The ratio thus reached 12.46%. In other words, of every 100 newborns in Taiwan last year, 12 were born to foreign spouses.

The stress and the difficulty of acculturation created by limitations of language and living conditions have made young foreign wives more susceptible than their local counterparts to psychological illnesses and difficulties during pregnancy and with child rearing.

According to the research of Hsu Te-yao and Chou Wen-chun, who respectively head the obstetrics-gynecology and psychology departments at Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung, foreign spouses show a tendency toward depression during pregnancy (32.5%) and 11.3% have contemplated suicide. As a result, foreign spouses are likely to give birth to underweight babies who develop slowly. Childhood medical exams have turned up problems foremost in language development and secondarily in a variety of other areas that lead to an estimated 63.6% of such children exhibiting slow psychological development.

In addition to these "internal, natural" deficits, Taiwan children born to foreign spouses are also severely disadvantaged by "external, manmade" factors.

The educational level of foreign spouses tends to be low. A 2001 Ministry of the Interior analysis of the educational level of all newly married women in the Taiwan Area shows that foreign brides with an educational level of junior high and below make up 41% of the total of newly marrieds. The figure for brides from Taiwan is 29%.

The marriage age of foreign brides also tends to be lower. Again, according to the 2001 analysis, 72% of foreign brides marry before the age of 24, double the percentage of Taiwan women (36%). 30% of foreign spouses marry even before the age of 19.

Professor Lin Wan-i of National Taiwan University's Social Work Department points out that a third of all foreign brides under the age of 20 tend to be physically, emotionally and socially immature. They are on average three to five years behind their Taiwan counterparts educationally. Not only is their own competitive advantage low, it adversely affects the rearing of their children and creates the problem of continued weak competitiveness for the next generation.

School-age children of international marriages are increasing in number and associated educational problems are gradually coming to the surface. In Penghu County, with the highest ratio of foreign spouses (800 Southeast Asian brides, plus over 600 brides from mainland China among a population of 60,000) the primary schools are like little "United Nations" with so many different countries represented. The second generation born to foreign spouses by and large remains at the bottom in school performance. The director of the Penghu County Bureau of Education, Yen Ping-chih, has gone so far as to say this group might even adversely affect the quality of education in Penghu County as a whole.

The inability to communicate in Chinese is a serious obstacle for the foreign bride, making it difficult for her to integrate into family and society and to raise the next generation. For this reason local areas have instituted Chinese classes for them. The only problem is there are still only a few who are able to get away from the home and attend. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

An "exchange" of population

International marriage has become a way for Taiwan men to handle the pressure of continuing the next generation. The Census Bureau announced at the end of July this year that in 2002 a quarter of all Taiwan grooms married "foreign brides," (including mainland Chinese) for a total figure of 44,843 women.

Given global trends today, it is difficult to challenge the concept of international marriage on moral grounds. Precisely because of this, however, society cannot afford to ignore the problems that come along with it. Professor Lin Wan-i points out that most of the women from Taiwan who marry abroad are senior high school and university graduates, while the women marrying into Taiwan are of lower socio-economic backgrounds, an exchange that will negatively impact the quality of Taiwan's population. This will affect Taiwan's future productive capacity and economic power.

Although foreign brides from Southeast Asian countries can lead to the increased diversity of Taiwan society, and Taiwan citizens can learn through this to be more accepting and more open, we must lose no time in responding to the possible conflict and segregation that this could create.

Professor Lin Wan-i notes that the recent anti-Middle Eastern xenephobia stemming from the US-Iraq War and the experience of Japanese war brides in the US immediately following World War II both illustrate that foreign spouses cannot completely preserve the culture of their mother country, neither is it easy for them to blend into the local society. If Taiwan, which has suffered the problems of "clan" society from the beginning, were not to cultivate an accepting attitude, the introduction of foreign brides would lead to a society with even more complicated group relationships.

"It is especially in regard to mainland Chinese spouses that the question of national identity arises," says Professor Lin Wan-i. All along the status of mainland Chinese spouses has been "fuzzy." But because there are no language barriers, problems of social contact are reduced and as a group they have been placed outside the category of "foreign bride" and called "compatriots." In fact, however, they are unable to enjoy "compatriot" treatment. Thus mainland Chinese brides hidden away in Taiwan society face problems that are perhaps less understood. Mainland Chinese brides are "neglected by politics," and "left alone by politics." But sweeping problems under the rug may make them worse.

Respect, harmony, love

"In our more than ten years of service we have been deeply moved by the unfortunate situation created by international marriages. The harm and lasting effects on women and children is truly frightful and difficult to gauge accurately," says Sister Therese Tang, executive director of the Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services Foundation. The government should set up an appropriate system of preventative measures, she says, but in the end, family problems must be solved by the families themselves.

In mid- and late April the Catholic Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services Foundation launched an islandwide campaign called "Respect, Harmony, Love-Prayers of Blessing for Families of International Marriages" hoping to encourage mutual respect and harmony in these families and praying that they would forgo violence and allow the children to grow up in an atmosphere of love.

"To solve the problems, we must first abandon the concept of the commercialization of marriage," says Professor Lin Wan-i. These go-betweens in the form of commercial marriage brokers have existed for more than ten years but there's no sign that any relevant government office has intervened. What, after all, is our population policy? How can unscrupulous marriage brokers be controlled? We have always lacked the laws and measures to deal with this.

Professor Lin says, "Taiwan society must take on the responsibility and make up for this unintended error and accept this burden." We must increase future public service investment that focuses on the families of international marriages in areas such as health, education and social welfare.

We must increase our assistance and cultural education for foreign brides in language, life habits, health, law, human rights, etc. Even more important is to teach Taiwan citizens how to treat these "wives from abroad" in a kind and friendly way, for making them fend for themselves and leaving them nowhere to turn to for help is merely "collective violence" against them by society as a whole. "The best prevention should take place before the marriage, otherwise the social costs will be very high," says Professor Lin. It is difficult to calculate the price society will have to pay for this but it is not fair to leave it to the next generation.

We can predict that this will be a major task for Taiwan in the future. The dilemma, and the challenge, is how to show due concern for societal development while at the same time acting in a humane way.