Mon, Oct 01, 2001 page3

• Foreign brides in Taiwan: Wedding bells for foreigners

  For the nation's 100,000 foreign brides, marriage to their Taiwanese husbands can be both a blessing and a burden. Both the private and public sector are trying to do their part to help these women live happily ever after

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  Over the past 10 years, Taiwan has seen an increasing number of foreign women marrying into local families. Just as with all marriages, some of these cross-cultural unions suffer while others succeed.

  Because of their backgrounds, foreign brides may encounter more difficulties than their Taiwanese counterparts. To help them better cope with the difficulties of inter-cultural marriage, both governmental agencies and private organizations have various levels of assistance available to them, as long as they reach out for help.

  Statistics released by the Cabinet's Ministry of the Interior show that as of July this year there were about 100,000 foreign brides in Taiwan, about half of whom were from China while the other half were from Southeast Asia.

  

  Foreign wives bow to pay their respects to the teacher of their foreign wives `training class' on the first day of class. The Taipei City government has sponsored four such classes this year in a bid to help foreign brides adjust to Taiwanese culture.

  PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

  Vietnamese brides top the list of Southeast Asian brides with over 28,000, followed by 9,000 Indonesians, 3,190 Filipinas and 3,153 Thais.

  Taipei City currently has about 7,000 foreign brides, some 7 percent of the total number. About 5,000 of the women are from China.

  Taipei County comprises about 14 percent of the nation's total, followed by Taoyuan County's 13 percent, Pintung County's 11 percent, and Changhua County's 7 percent.

  Growing numbers

  Taiwan started to see an increasing number of local men marrying foreign women in 1992, after the nation officially threw open its doors to foreign workers from Southeast Asia.

  Some people contend that another reason for the increase in foreign brides is related to the increasing financial independence of Taiwanese women. They contend that as local women become less reliant on men, men have turned elsewhere for potential brides.

  "Nowadays more and more Taiwanese women don't need to rely on men to support themselves. Some of them even lead a better life than their male counterparts," said Mao Chun-chieh (毛俊傑) of the foreign affairs division of the National Police Administration.

  Those women who hold well-paid jobs or have impressive educational backgrounds frequently have high standards when it comes to choosing their spouses, Mao said.

  "Taiwanese men, especially those in the lower class, usually feel threatened by women who are better-off than they are. Getting married to someone who's not as threatening gives them a sense of achievement," Mao said.

  Common struggles

  Speaking on his experiences in dealing with foreigners over the years, Mao said that most foreign brides encounter problems on both a psychological and material level.

  "One of the most common problems they encounter is the language barrier," Mao said. "Except for the Indonesian brides, who can communicate in the Hakka dialect, most of them encounter communication problems."

  Because of the language barrier, Mao said the brides frequently feel secluded and suffer psychologically.

  Cultural or religious differences are other common difficulties, Mao said.

  "Cultural or religious differences may not be a big problem if the two can communicate well with each other and are deeply in love," he said. "However, what I often see is that they don't communicate well and they hardly know each other," he said.

  Working illegally is another problem faced by some foreign brides, Mao said. "Some are forced to find a job to help support the family. And many may break the law without knowing that they need to obtain approval to work from the authorities first, despite their legal residence status," he said.

  According to the Employment Services Act, an alien married to a Taiwanese national is still not authorized to work in the country without first obtaining a work permit, filed by the person's employer on the individual's behalf.

  Violators could face a fine of between NT$3,000 and NT$30,000. Those foreign spouses who work without the right of residence could also face repatriation.

  Statistics show that as of August, about 5,000 foreign spouses from 57 countries filed for work permits from the Cabinet's Council of Labor Affairs. About 87 percent of them were Southeast Asian nationals.

  Matrimonial boot camp

  In a bid to help foreign brides make a smoother transition into life in Taiwan, the Ministry of the Interior in 1999 promulgated a measure encouraging local governments to organize training programs for them.

  A total of 14 county and city governments had held 37 life training programs as of August. Taipei City has hosted four programs since May.

  Fan Hui-hua (范蕙華), a division chief at the Wanhua District's household affairs office, said that their hope is to help the city's foreign brides blend into society and their communities more easily.

  "We know it's hard to marry and move to a foreign country. Although our budget is limited, we're doing what we can to help make their lives here a little bit easier," Fan said.

  The office and the civil affairs bureau have contributed about NT$50,000 each to the program.

  Lily Lo (羅雲勵), a 28-year-old Indonesian-Chinese participant, said that she is adapting to life here quite easily since marrying her 36-year-old Taiwanese husband a year ago.

  "I consider myself lucky because I don't have to overcome the language barrier because I spoke Hakka at home in Indonesia and learned to speak Mandarin by watching TV," she said. "Besides, before I met my husband, I had frequently visited my brother and sister in Taiwan, who emigrated here about 10 years ago."

  Darker problems

  In addition to the training program, the city also offers professional assistance to those who suffer from domestic violence or sexual assault.

  According to the city's Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Center (家庭暴力暨性侵害防治中心), the center has received over 14,000 telephone calls related to domestic violence between June 24, 1999 -- when the center was established -- and June of this year.

  Only about 1,900 of that total number, however, decided to use the center's counseling service. Of those who received counseling, 51 were foreign brides.

  "The number may not seem high, but we know it for a fact that there are a lot more women out there who are too scared to talk," said Chiang Chin-yin (姜琴音), chief of the center's adult protection division.

  "Foreign brides may be even more reluctant to reach out for help because of the language barrier and their inability to obtain public information and social resources," she said.

  Nine times out of ten, Chiang said, the foreign spouses opt to run away from home instead of seeking professional help.

  "Under such circumstances, they might eventually see their personal interests at risk if their spouses decide to file for a divorce," she said. "If, on the contrary, they're the ones who want a divorce, they might also need to spend a lot of time and money fighting alone in court."

  Chiang said her advice to abused foreign brides is to reach out and seek professional help from both public and private institutions.

  The center's toll-free help line is 0800-024-995 and the national 24-hour hotline is 113.

  Although the city's social affairs bureau also offers temporary shelters and benefits similar to those enjoyed by Taiwanese women to legal foreign brides, said Tso Cheng-cheng (左承誠), supervisor of the bureau's social worker division, adding that government support is still limited.

  "One of the best ways to solve the problems of foreign brides is to stop treating them as commodities and seeing them as unpaid domestic maids," she said.

  Social resources

  In addition to public resources, many non-governmental organizations have been providing help to foreign brides.

  The Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Service Foundation (天主教善牧基金會) has sheltered 155 foreign brides at the foundation's five single-mother households between 1995 and 2001.

  The shelter's foreign residents moved in with different problems. Some of them married so they could get identification cards which would allow them to work, later discovering that their new husbands were convicts, drug addicts or alcoholics.

  Others claimed they were treated as nothing more than reproductive tools.

  Intervention

  Although many problems can occur in interracial or intercultural marriages, some of them can be avoided in advance, said Sister Tang Jing-lien (湯靜蓮), the foundation's president.

  "The broker, who plays a significant role in the match-making process, should assume more responsibility by checking the background of the potential groom and speaking with him to gain a better understanding of his personal habits and character," Tang said.

  For those who decide to get married, Tang said the broker or the embassy should consider offering some sort of pre-marital counseling for future couples.

  And when marriages end in the couple seeking divorce and subsequently having trouble taking care of their children, Tang would like to see the government step in.

  Chuang Li-chuan (莊禮傳), executive-general of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Taiwan (賽珍珠基金會), called on the government to crackdown on illegal brokers and encourage legal ones to provide language and pre-marital education programs.

  "Language programs for foreign brides should be made compulsory and available at broker agencies or bushibans. Pre-marital education including inter-racial marriages and sex education are equally important," she said.

  The government should also hold training courses so that the country might have more interpreters capable of speaking different languages. "One of the reasons that foreign brides don't ask for help is because they don't know how," she said.

  Chuang added that she would like to see government agencies offer more help to foreign brides, and for law enforcement to take a more aggressive stance toward handling domestic violence cases that involve foreign brides.

  "[The foreign brides] deserve the same basic rights as Taiwanese women. After all, they are citizens of the Republic of China and share the same responsibilities as any other Taiwanese woman," she said.
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