On average 18,000 Vietnamese marry foreigners each year, with 78% of them coming from Ho Chi Minh City and poor areas of the Mekong Delta region.

Singer Doan Trang and her husband.

This information was released at a seminar jointly held by the Ministry of Public Security and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the Mekong Delta city of My Tho on July 30, discussing issues related to human trafficking and illegal marriage brokerage.

According to the Ministry of Public Security’s statistics, since 2008 as many as 115,675 Vietnamese citizens (women accounting for more than 72%) married foreigners, mostly from Taiwan, China, the Republic of Korea, and the US.

In the northern region, especially in border provinces like Quang Ninh, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Lai Chau and Lao Cai, the number of married couples between Vietnamese women with foreigners has increased in recent years. However, most of them have not yet registered at functional agencies, either in Vietnam or China.

The fact shows that some Vietnamese women, due to their economic difficulties, are forced to live with Chinese men without marriage certificates.

VOV/VNN