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Foreign bride gains DPP party membership

Nine years after she moved in Taiwan, Ho Ai-li (何愛麗), the Vietnamese-born wife of Yang Shi-lung (楊石龍), joined the DPP last month with a hope that one day she could be elected as a legislator-at-large to fight for the benefits for foreign brides.

Ho said she developed a keen interest in politics after helping her husband with his unsuccessful legislative bid in 2001.

Seeing that tens of thousands of foreign brides suffer domestic violence in their marriages as well as unemployment and language barriers, Ho said she wishes to be of some help.

She said if she became a legislator, she would strive to have laws passed that grant more rights to foreign brides. For example, she would like them to be able to obtain work permits immediately upon their arrival.

By law, these women have to wait for at least five years before they are allowed to work legally.

Ho and Yang fell in love some 10 years ago when Yang was in Vietnam on business. Maintaining a long-distance romance for three years, they married in 1994 and Ho moved to her husband's hometown, Jenteh township in Tainan.

She obtained her citizenship and a national ID card four years ago.

Ho said she seeks to win support from other foreign brides and she would like to invite other Vietnamese brides to join the DPP.

Tsai Er-hai (蔡爾翰), the director of DPP's Tainan office, said he welcomed Ho's entry to the party, but said she will have to follow party rules if she wants to become a legislative candidate.

In order to seek a legislator-at-large position, a candidate must first win his or her party's primary. DPP regulations require both candidates and voters in the party's primary to have been members for more than a year.

Cross-cultural marriages are increasing, partly because economic and social exchanges with other countries have grown and partly because many financially independent Taiwanese women choose to stay single.

There are reportedly 100,000 foreign brides nationwide, mostly from Thailand, Vietnam and China.

A report by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said 62 percent of immigrants in 2001 were female.
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