The government of Mungyeong City in North Gyeongsang Province is facing criticism from women’s and immigrants’ rights groups for its campaign aimed at encouraging farmers of Korean nationality in the city to get married to Vietnamese students studying in Korea.
The groups said that such a campaign is clearly racist and discriminatory, not only against a particular country but also against all immigrant women and international students living in Korea.
The Women Migrant Human Rights Center of Korea said Friday that it had found Mungyeong City’s promotional material for the campaign online in mid-April, in which the city government aimed to help male farmers who are older than the usual “marriageable age” get married to Vietnamese students. The city government said that the campaign was designed to help reverse Korea’s population decline and the aging of Korean society.
In the material, the city government also asked international marriage brokers to cooperate.
The center claimed that the city government, which is supposed to be tasked with preventing commercial international marriages, has actually encouraged such marriages instead.
It filed a petition with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea against the city government later that day.
“Sixty-three other civic groups, including the Korea Women’s Hotline, along with 144 individuals, participated in the submission of the petition,” a center official said. “We believe that the Mungyeong city government’s campaign violated immigrant women’s rights to equality as well as their rights to pursue happiness in Korea.”
A Vietnamese student, who participated in a joint press conference held in front of the commission, said that targeting Vietnamese students for marriage was a result of negative stereotypes and prejudices that suggest Vietnamese women come to Korea only to try to get married with Koreans.
“We, the students, holding student visas, are in Korea to receive a high-quality education and pursue our dreams,” the student said.
“I sincerely urge the authorities of Mungyeong to withdraw the campaign. Marriage should be the choice of a couple themselves and thus, local governments should not treat a specified group simply as a means to increase the population.”
