In the past several years, every once in a while, the public can see news reports about prostitutes from China arrested by Taiwanese police.
These Chinese women, who usually come to Taiwan legally via marrying a Taiwanese man, are found to be making money through prostitution.
The situation, which is common in Taiwan, has been called "faking marriage, real prostitution" (
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTON
According to figures provided by the Mainland Affairs Council, investigators uncovered 3,173 cases of Chinese women engaging in prostitution between 1998 and last year.
"The problem is very serious," said Jeff Yang (
Yang said that in practice, it's very difficult to tell whether newlyweds arriving in Taiwan are truly in love or whether the marriage is fake.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
The government official attributed the fake-marriage problem to economic disparities between Taiwan and China. "Marriages involving two sides from areas or nations of great economical disparity could turn into a problem," he said.
Since the government opened private exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in 1989, marriages between Chinese and Taiwanese have grown every year.
There were 4,162 cross-strait marriages in 1993, the first year records were kept, growing to 31,167 in 2001. In all, there are now 155,664 cross-strait couples in Taiwan.
The Straits Exchange Foundation, which handles the paperwork for cross-strait marriages, deals with roughly 10 cases per day.
Lin Shu-min (
"In those cases, we notify the police and prosecutors to investigate whether any illegal activity such as prostitution is involved," she said.
Lin said she hoped cross-strait couples would enter into marriage "based on true love," but it's difficult to determine whether a union is genuine or not.
To tackle the problem of phony marriages, the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Mainland Affairs Council plan to implement an interview process soon. The agencies hope the interview will help weed out fake couples.
"This is similar to the measures of other advanced countries in verifying marriages," Yang said. "We hope this mechanism will reduce social problems caused by cross-strait marriages."
According to Yang, human smugglers play an important role in arranging fake marriages.
According to a research report published by the Prospect Foundation (
According to the Prospect Foundation, human smugglers tell Chinese females that they can easily make money in Taiwan, as long as they pay for their trip.
The regular charge for the service is roughly 110,000 yuan (US$13,400), which includes a fake marriage to a Taiwanese national that will allow her to enter Taiwan.
There are other problems with cross-strait marriages, besides prostitution.
Among genuine marriages, according to Yang, there are some cases where Chinese women are married to old, handicapped, or mentally ill Taiwanese husbands, who would have difficulty finding a girl to marry in Taiwan.
Yang said he once dealt with a case involving a mother who accused her Chinese daughter-in-law of bullying her mentally ill son.
Asked why the mother had arranged for her son to marry a Chinese woman, the mother replied, "A man should marry a woman, even if he has mental deficiency."
Yang gave another example to illustrate problems that may come up in cross-strait marriages.
A Taiwanese man phoned him recently to complain about his father.
The man said his father extremely hates the communist party and is always beating up his Chinese daughter-in-law to vent his anger, just because she comes from communist China,
The man had just married the woman in China six months ago.
"The father even broke down the door while she was in the shower to drag her out and hit her," Yang said. "We immediately contacted the police and the Chinese Relief Association."
Yang said the woman was placed in temporary housing to allow the son to work out the problem with his father.
"All kinds of incredible cases happen everyday regarding cross-strait marriages," Yang said. "I do as much as I can."
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