Page 1 of 13 [ 208 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 13  Next

pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

01 May 2011, 12:06 pm

http://mr-cupid.com/Vietnam's%20house%2 ... irgins.pdf

Quote:
In an industrial suburb in Ho Chi Minh City, a single-storey zinc-roofed factory staffed by 3,500 young women
churns out items like sports shoes and polo T-shirts for foreign brands.

It's not unlike hundreds of other factories, except this one has something else: virgin brides for foreign men.

The Mr Cupid International Matchmakers service was the brainchild of the factory's owner, a reclusive semiretired Vietnamese man in his 40s.

While businesses offering brides are hardly rare, the idea of using eligible young virgins as workers while they
wait for husbands is almost certainly unique.

At first, the factory hired scouts to scour the countryside for "suitable" virgin village girls they could advertise
for foreign bachelors through their agencies in countries like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia.
Now they don't have to go looking. Parents bring their daughters to them.

Girls like willowy 20-year-old Huynh Thi Phuong Thuy put up with long shifts sewing shirts and gluing shoes
hoping it is a first step to marriage.

"I went to work in the factory because I wanted to marry a foreign man," she told The Sunday Times in a phone
interview.

Ms Phuong Thuy got what she wanted. She married a 40-year-old Singaporean storeman last July and now lives in Jurong.
"Life in Singapore is much better than back in Vietnam," she said.

But the factory won't take just anyone. In fact, there is strict "quality" control.

New arrivals are given the once-over by matronly female supervisors who look out for telltale signs of previous
pregnancies, such as stretch marks or caesarean scars. Those who fail are sent back.

Those chosen are given a medical examination to check their hymen is still intact. If it isn't, they are rejected.

After being hired, the women are expected to work hard and behave well. Female supervisors at the factory penalise lazy, talkative or rebellious girls by barring them from matchmaking sessions. No work, no husband.

Said Martin Wong, managing director of Mr Cupid's Singapore office: "These girls are marrying abroad. They
have to be obedient to their husbands. We're preparing them for their new lives."

Before she got married, Ms Phuong Thuy used to work 12-hour shifts seated on bbare floors, earning less than $5
a day. But despite the long hours, most village girls find life at the factory easier than working in the paddy
fields, plantations or shrimp farms back home, where many of them had no electricity or running water, ate one
meal a day and bathed in river or rainwater.

So far, Mr Cupid has found brides for around 1,800 men in the region, 300 of them in Singapore.
The girls are given photographs of the men and they choose whether they want to go for the matchmaking
session. After that, the decisions are down to the men.

The process can be brutal. In one case, 2,200 girls wanted to be set up with a Taiwanese businessman.
"Can you imagine, they're so hopeful. They stay back in the dormitories, dress up and they only have two
seconds to impress before they're turned away," said Mr Wong, in an interview at Mr Cupid's second-floor
office at Pearls Centre in Eu Tong Sen Street.

If the groom makes his choice, the rest of those in the queue are sent back.

It sounds degrading, but Mr Wong insists the young women are willing.

"They're born in a poor country. For many of them, this is their only chance to break out of poverty," he said.
For many, it's a long wait. Out of the 3,500 girls working at the factory, only about 300 get hitched each year.
The prettier ones usually get chosen within six months, while some have gone for more than 200 matchmaking
sessions without success.

Most quit after two or three years and go back home if they haven't been chosen, said Mr Wong.
Some cling on.

The oldest worker there is a 35-year-old seamstress, who faithfully works her shifts and lives in hope of being
picked one day.



Lefebvre
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 5 Nov 2010
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 79

01 May 2011, 1:45 pm

I heard it's nicknamed 'The Fucktory'.



sartresue
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Age: 69
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,313
Location: The Castle of Shock and Awe-tism

01 May 2011, 2:42 pm

pandabear wrote:
http://mr-cupid.com/Vietnam's%20house%20of%20virgins.pdf

Quote:
In an industrial suburb in Ho Chi Minh City, a single-storey zinc-roofed factory staffed by 3,500 young women
churns out items like sports shoes and polo T-shirts for foreign brands.

It's not unlike hundreds of other factories, except this one has something else: virgin brides for foreign men.

The Mr Cupid International Matchmakers service was the brainchild of the factory's owner, a reclusive semiretired Vietnamese man in his 40s.

While businesses offering brides are hardly rare, the idea of using eligible young virgins as workers while they
wait for husbands is almost certainly unique.

At first, the factory hired scouts to scour the countryside for "suitable" virgin village girls they could advertise
for foreign bachelors through their agencies in countries like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia.
Now they don't have to go looking. Parents bring their daughters to them.

Girls like willowy 20-year-old Huynh Thi Phuong Thuy put up with long shifts sewing shirts and gluing shoes
hoping it is a first step to marriage.

"I went to work in the factory because I wanted to marry a foreign man," she told The Sunday Times in a phone
interview.

Ms Phuong Thuy got what she wanted. She married a 40-year-old Singaporean storeman last July and now lives in Jurong.
"Life in Singapore is much better than back in Vietnam," she said.

But the factory won't take just anyone. In fact, there is strict "quality" control.

New arrivals are given the once-over by matronly female supervisors who look out for telltale signs of previous
pregnancies, such as stretch marks or caesarean scars. Those who fail are sent back.

Those chosen are given a medical examination to check their hymen is still intact. If it isn't, they are rejected.

After being hired, the women are expected to work hard and behave well. Female supervisors at the factory penalise lazy, talkative or rebellious girls by barring them from matchmaking sessions. No work, no husband.

Said Martin Wong, managing director of Mr Cupid's Singapore office: "These girls are marrying abroad. They
have to be obedient to their husbands. We're preparing them for their new lives."

Before she got married, Ms Phuong Thuy used to work 12-hour shifts seated on bbare floors, earning less than $5
a day. But despite the long hours, most village girls find life at the factory easier than working in the paddy
fields, plantations or shrimp farms back home, where many of them had no electricity or running water, ate one
meal a day and bathed in river or rainwater.

So far, Mr Cupid has found brides for around 1,800 men in the region, 300 of them in Singapore.
The girls are given photographs of the men and they choose whether they want to go for the matchmaking
session. After that, the decisions are down to the men.

The process can be brutal. In one case, 2,200 girls wanted to be set up with a Taiwanese businessman.
"Can you imagine, they're so hopeful. They stay back in the dormitories, dress up and they only have two
seconds to impress before they're turned away," said Mr Wong, in an interview at Mr Cupid's second-floor
office at Pearls Centre in Eu Tong Sen Street.

If the groom makes his choice, the rest of those in the queue are sent back.

It sounds degrading, but Mr Wong insists the young women are willing.

"They're born in a poor country. For many of them, this is their only chance to break out of poverty," he said.
For many, it's a long wait. Out of the 3,500 girls working at the factory, only about 300 get hitched each year.
The prettier ones usually get chosen within six months, while some have gone for more than 200 matchmaking
sessions without success.

Most quit after two or three years and go back home if they haven't been chosen, said Mr Wong.
Some cling on.

The oldest worker there is a 35-year-old seamstress, who faithfully works her shifts and lives in hope of being
picked one day.


Not so brilliant topic

For the women, I mean. Just another way of paying starvation wages for overwork. Sexism at its worst, a brothel bank.


_________________
Radiant Aspergian
Awe-Tistic Whirlwind

Phuture Phounder of the Philosophy Phactory

NOT a believer of Mystic Woo-Woo


pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

01 May 2011, 4:42 pm

Makes you wonder why some shoes are still so expensive.



ryan93
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,315
Location: Galway, Ireland

01 May 2011, 5:04 pm

She love you long time?

Sorry...


_________________
The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists - Erwin Schrodinger

Member of the WP Strident Atheists


cdfox7
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Mar 2011
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,700

01 May 2011, 5:29 pm

Finally the theories of Adam Smith have come to practice in knocking shops, or shud I say knocking factory!!



pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

01 May 2011, 6:44 pm

From a Republican/Conservative/Objectivist/Economist perspective, I don't see anything objectively wrong with this particular business model.

For the women, it is a factory job, with a shot at fulfilling the Cinderella fantasy.

Most modern professional men feel compelled to display insane levels of dedication and passion to their employers. They thus have little time for romance, dating, and similar hanky-panky.

Often when they hit approximately the age of 30, many men feel that it is time to get married, and they seek to accomplish this with a minimum of drama and without distraction to their professional lives.

With their 2 weeks of annual leave, they can spend a few days in Vietnam, select a willing wife who is a virgin, and they are done with it. Mission accomplished.

For the business owner, it makes tremendous sense. The women are willing and eager to work harder for him, and for less money, than if they didn't have a shot at the Cinderella outcome. Plus, men pay him fees that amount to thousands of dollars.

Now, Liberals and Conservatives will certainly look at the situation differently. Liberals will want to impose minimum wage laws that drive out business, raise taxes to pay for public schools, and force Feminazi views that make it impossible for an employer to discriminate against women who are either non-virgins or who are unattractive. Conservatives, on the other hand, remain convinced that all problems can be magically solved through eliminating capital gains taxes and reducing other taxes.



pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

09 May 2011, 6:11 pm

Well, it looks like the Vietnamese government is cracking down rather hard on this industry.

http://www.thanhniennews.com/2010/Pages ... 23528.aspx

Quote:
Bride broker crackdown
Last updated: 4/29/2011 9:00

Experts say more must be done to ensure the safety and welfare of local women looking to marry abroad

Last week, Qi Shui Hua, 38, walked into an upscale café in District 6 expecting to review a parade of potential young brides. He would take one home, he thought, for a hefty fee.

Instead, Hua had to fly back to China alone.

On April 21, city police raided the café and arrested Ha My Nga and Phu Duc Hang, the two women broking a marriage for Hua.

The arrest signified the latest move in a nationwide crackdown on illegal marriage broker scams.

A week earlier, Can Tho City police arrested three people suspected of having paid a justice department official a total of VND1.7 billion (US$81,281) in bribes to help expedite paperwork for local women looking to marry foreigners.

The suspects include a local ward official in charge of birth, marriage and death records, a 49-year-old Korean-language instructor, and a 32-year-old man. The trio was accused of making illicit payments to Phan Thanh Dung, deputy head of the Judicial Administrative Section under the city’s Justice Department last November.

Dung is also in custody and remains under investigation for his alleged role in the scheme.

Matter of money

According to the Ministry of Justice, more than 257,000 Vietnamese married foreigners or Vietnamese residing overseas between 1995 and 2010—over 80 percent of these individuals are women.

Most of the foreign spouses are from Taiwan, the US, South Korea and China.

At a conference in Can Tho held on April 22, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan instructed the ministries of public security, justice, and foreign affairs to cooperate on improving the laws protecting Vietnamese women married to foreigners.

Despite legal improvements effected during the past five years, he noted, many marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men are conducted without love, knowledge of culture and language and awareness of their spouses’ family background and health conditions.

At the conference, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Thanh Son said that marriages between Vietnam citizens and foreigners are normal but need to be better managed.

“Concerned agencies should do more to protect women’s rights and improve relations with other countries in the meantime,” he said.

A survey conducted by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, early this year, found that only seven percent of these couples married for love; the rest wed for financial reasons.

Nearly 60 percent of marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men were arranged by illegal brokers, according to the study.

Unprotected

These services often provide potential brides with little information about their future spouses, according to a host of foreign researchers.

Sociologists and women’s rights advocates have claimed that many of these women never adapt to their new lives and more should be done to protect them.

Danièle Bélanger, a sociologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, has conducted extensive research on women’s issues in Vietnam.

Bélanger found that some young Vietnamese women want to marry abroad to avoid domestic violence at home. If Vietnam wants to clampdown on brides leaving the country, it should tackle this problem first and foremost.

“Domestic violence is widespread in rural Vietnam and is accepted as a fact of life by many,” she told Thanh Nien Weekly via email. “This is a problem... So fears of having a husband who does not work, drinks, gambles and who is violent actually pushed some young women to marry abroad.”

At the same time, she said that many of these foreign marriages can be just as dangerous and problematic. Bélanger urged Vietnam to assist women in making healthy choices.

“Vietnam should empower women who enter international marriages by providing them with information, legal services and support,” she added. “The phenomenon cannot be stopped by condemning it.”

Hong-zen Wang, director of the Department of Sociology at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, argued that the migration of Vietnamese women through marriage could help Vietnam improve transnational activities and generate remittances.

“Women who migrate abroad, whether for work or marriage, are emigrants in their own right and should be treated as such,” he said.

Wang believes receiving countries should educate native husbands about Vietnamese history, gender roles and family systems. At the same time, he said, Vietnam should provide further information to departing women.

In the short term, Hyunok Lee, a PhD candidate at Cornell University’s Department of Development Sociology, urged Vietnam to establish emergency relief for marriages that fail.

Bélanger also warned against the hardships Vietnamese women face when returning home from unhappy marriages abroad.

Some flee their adopted country and return home without having officially divorced.

“Their situation is very complex,” she said. “They tend to be stigmatized and excluded. Much more needs to be done to address the needs of returnees and their children.”



Poor Mr. Qi Shui Hua.



Jacoby
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Dec 2007
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 14,284
Location: Permanently banned by power tripping mods lol this forum is trash

09 May 2011, 7:47 pm

It's sad that these women are so desperate to escape Vietnam that they'll essentially become slaves just for the hope of finding a foreign husband.



MarketAndChurch
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Apr 2011
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,022
Location: The Peoples Republic Of Portland

09 May 2011, 8:10 pm

Often in life, you aren't given choice between a great option and a terrible one. Often... it's between a terrible option, and a not-as-bad option (but not ideal either). Who knows how abusive these foreign men are going to be, or if they leave these girls after a few years, leaving them to fend for themselves in their new foreign country. It's a risk you run though for a better life, so, given the conditions in which this factory operates, I don't find much to whine about. Good luck to these virgin women who take part in this marriage lottery and may they find a better life through it.


_________________
It is not up to you to finish the task, nor are you free to desist from trying.


Subotai
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,036
Location: 日本

09 May 2011, 8:25 pm

This is why nobody in North America is allowed to b!tch about the job situation. :lol:

In all honesty though this is sad. We are millionaires compared to these poor peasant women.



Bethie
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,817
Location: My World, Highview, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Earth, The Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster

12 May 2011, 4:39 am

Quote:
It sounds degrading, but Mr Wong insists the young women are willing.



"But"? I missed the reasoning on why the two are exclusive.

Commodifying human beings isn't made justifiable by them being poor and desperate-
the opposite, if anything.

pandabear wrote:
For the women, it is a factory job, with a shot at fulfilling the Cinderella fantasy.

I missed the bit of Cinderella about Prince Charming being a man you've never met who literally purchases human beings on the basis of how decorative they are.
Maybe because I watched the Disney version?
pandabear wrote:
Poor Mr. Qi Shui Hua.

You know what they say- "Pimpin ain't easy". And that's exactly what that scum is- a pimp.


_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.


pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

12 May 2011, 10:06 am

Bethie wrote:
"But"? I missed the reasoning on why the two are exclusive.

Commodifying human beings isn't made justifiable by them being poor and desperate-
the opposite, if anything.

In many parts of the world, marriages are still typically arranged by the parents.

"Commodifying" occurs whether one follows the elaborate courtship procedures of the USA, or the more simple "pick the one you fancy" style offered at the factory in Vietnam, or when it is the parents who make the selection.

The parents of the Vietnamese bride can generally look forward to life-long financial support, which would be much greater than if their daughters were to marry local villagers. For the women, this is probably better than being sold to a brothel, which happens to millions of girls (and boys) in Southeast Asia.

Bethie wrote:
I missed the bit of Cinderella about Prince Charming being a man you've never met who literally purchases human beings on the basis of how decorative they are.
Maybe because I watched the Disney version?

In the Disney version, all of the maidens in the kingdom are invited to the palace so that Prince Charming will select one to marry and turn into a princess. Based purely on how decorative he finds her. The immediate "rags to riches" outcome. Of course, in those days, a real prince would only marry another blue-blood, the marriage having been arranged by the parents for political considerations. The case of a king marrying a commoner (as in Ann Boleyn) generally didn't bode well. Of course, there would have been nothing to stop a king or prince from having coitus with any of the maidens of his realm.

Quote:
pandabear wrote:
Poor Mr. Qi Shui Hua.

You know what they say- "Pimpin ain't easy". And that's exactly what that scum is- a pimp.

The term "pimp" would refer to the procurer. Mr. Qi was a dissappointed customer.



pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

18 May 2011, 11:48 am

I wonder whether anyone has thought of selling the brides on EBay?



pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

03 Jun 2011, 2:36 pm

ryan93 wrote:
She love you long time?

Sorry...


HaHaHa!

I finally got around to watching "Full Metal Jacket." Now I finally know from whence deriveth this expression.

"Me so hawny! Me love you long time."

:P :lol:



pandabear
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,402

30 Jun 2011, 1:29 pm

Well, here is a petition, to put an end to the "Vietnamese Virgin Bride" business.

http://www.petitiononline.com/stopWTra/petition.html

It seems that there is some hyperbole in the petition.

I don't personally see anything wrong with people using a matchmaking service. They make it sound as if women are kidnapped in Vietnam and sold into slavery in Singapore. This does happen in Thailand with the brothels. But, marrying someone is hardly the same as enslaving someone.

But, by all means, feel free to add your name to the petition, if you wish.