Vietnamese women vanish after marrying Chinese men

World Today

More than a 100 newlywed Vietnamese brides vanished, after marrying Chinese men in a village of North China’s Hebei Province. Why did they run away? CCTV News’s Ning Hong reported this story with details.

On the 20th of November, over a 100 Vietnamese brides vanished almost at the same time in three counties in Handan, Hebei Province. Most had married local farmers. It’s likely that the grooms are the victims of a cross-county marriage fraud. Zhang Yantao is one of them.

“She said she was with her friends at night, and would return at seven the next morning,” he said.

Most of these farmers paid over a 100,000 yuan, roughly $15,000 to a marriage agent, a Vietnamese woman. Now the agent is gone, too. Only one bride returned, more than a day later. She said she’d been drugged.

“I woke up in a room. There was no light. I was asked to marry someone else but I refused and escaped,” Wu, Vietnamese bride said.

These years, many single men in rural China have looked for wives in Vietnam, paying a substantial fee to marriage agents. The risk is that it may involve human trafficking or fraud. Yet more people are doing it.

The gender imbalance may be another reason why Chinese men are looking for international brides. 26-year old Yuan Xinqiang is in this situation. He began using matchmakers four years ago.

“I could meet 20 to 30 girls a year,” he said.

But nothing worked out. Yuan said the main reason is money. To marry a local girl could cost several hundred thousand Yuan. That’s more than a farmer’s family makes in a decade. And there aren’t many girls to choose from.

“The acceleration of urbanization is leaving many young women married to city residents, while young man are intimidated by the high cost of marriage and return to their villages. This has exacerbated the gender imbalance there,” Wang Zuhua, researcher, Hebei Academy of Social Sciences said.

Local police are now investigating. And these farmers in Handan are not just out of their life savings. Their brides may never show up again.