Taipei, Sept. 18 (CNA) A two-day international conference will be held Sept. 19-20 to discuss the rapid increase and impact of cross-border marriages in Asia and Europe.
The Conference on Intermediated Cross-Border Marriages in Asia and Europe, which is being organized by the National Science Council (NSC) , the Institute of Sociology of Academia Sinica and the Netherlands-based International Institute of Asian Studies has invited 13 foreign academics for discussions with their local counterparts.
"In Taiwan, cross-border marriages accounted for 27.4 percent of the total marriages in 2002, with one out of every eight children in Taiwan born into a cross-border family, " said NSC Deputy Minister Yang Hung-duen.
The same phenomenon can be seen in East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, he said.
"The phenomena of 'brides from Asia' in Japan, 'mixed marriages' in South Korea, and 'foreign and Chinese brides' in Taiwan, all attract huge media attention, cause public panic and challenge these societies whose population policies are based on mono-ethnic principles, " he claimed.
In Europe, marriage migration also has been steadily growing, resulting from globalization and the expansion of the European Union, he said. The issues of the political, social and cultural citizenship of migrants and their children are constantly in public debate, he added.