Taipei, June 1 (CNA) The ban on interracial marriage brokerage to be implemented by the government is "the right thing to do, " but accompanying measures and enforcement of the law are even more important, a Vietnamese representative in Taiwan said Friday.
The Vietnamese government has always opposed interracial marriage brokerage, said Nguyen Cong Manh, deputy head of the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei (VECO) -- the Vietnamese representative office in Taiwan.
Nguyen was responding to an amendment to the Immigration Law in which legislators agreed Thursday to put an end to the controversial interracial marriage brokerage industry. Effective immediately, cross-border marriage brokers will be banned from doing business and offenders will be subject to punishment.
There are approximately 100,000 Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men living in Taiwan at present, and one in three foreign spouses in Taiwan comes from Vietnam, Nguyen said.
"While most of them have happy marriages, there's no denying that problems such as abuse, fraudulent marriages and human smuggling are happening, which is why we, as a government, agree with the amendment, " he said.
The number of cross-border marriages between Taiwan and Vietnam reached a very high level from 1993-2003 before the Taiwan and Vietnam governments started implementing stricter regulations on marriage applications, Nguyen said, adding that the number has been stable ever since.
However, the demand was always there and Nguyen stressed that the governments of both sides will have to cooperate and work out a solution for those Taiwanese men who want to legally marry Vietnamese women.
"Otherwise, most of the brokerage companies will go `underground' and still do the same things under the guise of travel agencies or friendship societies," he said.